Burned
by FreakyGreenEyes123
Summary: After Callie comes back from Helen's, she's not the same. She begins doubting everyone and everything around her, realizing once again, that nothing is ever permanent, especially when it comes to her. Does she find another way to cope and escape her fears? Or will she allow them to swallow her whole instead? (Warning: Self-Harm)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nada.**

**Warning: **If any mention of self-harm bothers you, then this is not the fic for you.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

* * *

Callie raised the lighter up to her skin and let the fire push against it, taking a deep breath right before and letting the pain from the heat take over.

It helped.

And it was the only thing that was helping her right about now.

Yes, she was back home with Stef and Lena now, but with everything that was going on she could just feel the walls closing in on her.

And she could already hear the doorbell ringing, with the next cps worker standing on the other side threatening to take her away.

_But take her away to where?_

_To another Helen maybe? _

_Who knows?_

_Flashback_

_Callie watched as Helen locked the door and could hear the clicking of the latch as she turned the key to the right and then to the left._

_She could hear Helen twisting the knob from the other side, just to make sure that Callie couldn't get out._

_The girl tried to convince herself that it was only to keep her safe, but she couldn't help but think that the bars on the windows were only there to break her even more._

_Once again, she felt like she was in a jail cell, but she couldn't understand why this time._

_She walked over toward the window frame and lifted it just to smell the air. Her hands clenched around the black metal bars and she couldn't help but automatically fear the worst._

_Would Stef really come and get her like she promised she would?_

_Was this really only for one night?_

_Or would they forget about her just like they forgot to renew their fostering license?_

_End of Flashback_

Callie glanced back at her arm and immediately removed her lighter from her forearm as she remembered that it was piercing a hole through her skin. She opened her mouth from the pain, but made sure not to make a sound as she glanced back down at the evidence.

A small pink mark,

A mark that was barely noticeable now,

And mark that she knew would be gone by tomorrow.

It was too bad that she couldn't say the same about her troubles.

* * *

She heard a soft knock on the bathroom door. "Callie, are you in there?" Stef asked with a hint of worry in her voice.

Callie shoved the blue lighter into her pocket and turned on the sink, "Yes, I'll be out in a minute," she called as she rolled her sleeve back down, once again glancing at the small pink mark on her arm.

_It didn't look as bad as it felt_, she thought to herself.

_She could get used to this._

_Callie was actually relieved, when she found the lighter hidden under the matress at Helen's._

_It gave her something to do while she was locked in that room._

_And it became a habit of hers now._

Stef was standing outside as soon a Callie opened the door, "Are you okay, sweets?" she asked as she glanced at the girl quickly up and down.

"Yah, I'm fine," she answered with a smile as she tried to walk away but Stef caught her by her arm, and unknowingly wrapped her hand around the burn mark she just made. Luckily, Callie could barely feel the stinging.

_This was a good sign, right?_

_If it didn't hurt her anymore, then it couldn't be that serious…_

Callie turned around to look at the woman.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asks again.

"Uhuh," she smiled. "Why?"

Stef coughed nervously before she answered, "Well… I know that you've been through a lot these last couple of days and after I came to pick you up from that woman's house, I've noticed you've been acting a little differently. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but… I just want to remind you that you can come and talk to us, yes?"

_But what Stef hadn't realized was that she was the last person Callie wanted to talk to._

_She trusted those two women and they had let her get taken away._

_What's to stop all of that from happening again?_

_What's to stop her from getting burned again?_

"I'm fine," the teen offered a small laugh, and then added an, "I promise."

"Okay," Stef said as she smiled back and let go of Callie's arm, to pull her in for a hug. "I love you, my baby," she finished as she kissed her head.

But to Callie, the kiss hurt more than the burn itself. "I know," she lied. "Love you too," she answered timidly.

"Good night," Stef said with an eyewink.

"Yeah. Good night," Callie replied sincerely and then walked away.

As soon as she closed her bedroom door behind her, she glanced around the room for any sign of Mariana.

She was alone.

Again, she reached inside of her pocket for the lighter and raised her shirtsleeve up for some exposure, flicking the lighter on and holding it up and onto her skin. She closed her eyes as she allowed the fire to consume her thoughts as she counted down.

1…It's not over.

2…There's more to come.

3…It doesn't hurt that bad.

4…Don't bother unpacking.

5…Is someone knocking?

6…You're somewhere else.

7…You're waiting again.

8…Trapped in a cage.

9…They'll let you burn.

10…So why not do the honors?

**To be continued.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

"Come on, my babies!" Stef yelled as she knocked on the girl's bedroom door and walked in. "You two have to get up and get ready for school. You all have to walk today so please get a move on, yes?"

"I'm up," Callie mumbled.

Stef looked over at her other daughter and shook her head, "Miss Thing, if you want to get a shower first, I suggest you wake up before I go tell Brandon the spot's still open…"

Mariana practically leaped out of her bed, "I'm up, I'm up," she's said energetically.

Stef smiled at her. "That's more like it," she laughed as she watched her daughter open the drawers, pull out some clothes, and rush out of the room.

Callie started to sit up and glanced over at the woman through squinted eyes. Stef laughed at the sight, "Didn't sleep well, I'm guessing?"

_How can someone sleep well, when they're not sure if they're going to be taken away in the middle of the night? _Callie thought to herself.

"No, I'm fine," she answered instead. "Is Jude up yet?" she changed the subject, mainly to avoid lying again.

"Uh, no. Not yet. I was just on my way to wake him actually. I like to save Jesus and Brandon for last. That way, I'm not in a bad mood when I come in here," she joked.

"I'll go wake him up," Callie offered.

"No, you don't have to. I'll—"

"I want to," she explained before Stef could tell her she couldn't.

"Okay. Sure, sweets," the blonde agreed as she glanced down at the direction of the arm that Callie had burned yesterday, "Hey, what's that?" the woman asked accusingly.

Callie's face went pale as she assumed the worse and didn't want to look down herself, "What?" she tried to ask innocently, but it came out nervously instead.

"You know what…" Stef cautioned as she moved her hand toward the direction of Callie's arm and pulled out her cellphone that was lying under it. "Now, I know why you're so tired," she tried to say sternly but a small smiled creped on her face at her bad attempt to scorn the girl.

"Oh," Callie said with a hint of relief, which Stef caught onto. "Yeah, I guess I stayed up a little later than I was supposed to. Sorry, it won't happen again."

Stef examined Callie's face for a few seconds with curiosity, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Why‑why wouldn't I be okay?" Callie asked nervously, trying her best to keep the burned-side of her arm laying against the bed.

She so badly wanted to check if the pink mark was still there, but she knew that if she did, it would attract Stef's gaze as well. And that was the last thing she wanted to do. She didn't want them to think she had done it for attention.

"I don't know. You tell me?" Stef asked, as she took a seat on the edge of Callie's bed and crossed her fingers over one another on her lap, while waiting for a response. She kept her gaze on Callie's face as she tried to read it for any signs of nervousness.

"I'm fine, Stef. Really," Callie replied, with the hope that the blonde woman would leave it at that and go wake up the others. But rather than do that, she stayed there watching the teen silently.

After a while, Callie realized that Stef wasn't planning on moving first, so arose from her bed. "I'm going to go wake up Jude now," she explained as she walked out of the room and tried her best to keep her arm away from the cop's vision.

* * *

Once she got inside Jude's room, she closed the door behind her and lifted her forearm to examine it. There was a small and barely visible circle, which she knew wouldn't cause for any concern if it was detected. And the chances of it being detected were very slim. And for once she was relieved when that wasn't the reason Stef was behaving the way that she did.

Callie dropped her arm back down and glanced over at a still-sleeping Jude. Maybe her foster-mother found it strange that she wanted to be the one to wake him up? Callie thought.

Why she would find it strange in the first place was beyond her. But that didn't change the fact that Callie was going to make sure to spend as much time with her brother as she could.

She walked over toward his bed and pushed his hair back gently, causing him to flutter his eyes until they were fully open, "Callie?" he asked in confusion.

"Morning, bud," she answered with a smile.

"What's wrong?" he asked as he began to sit up.

"Nothing," Callie said as she tilted her head at Jude, "I just wanted to be the one to wake you up for school, today. Is that okay?" she asked worriedly.

As much as she tried so hard not to appear frightened when Stef and Lena began doing all of the things she used to do for him, Callie couldn't help but feel like they were replacing her. And Jude's questioning something she used to do every single day for years, just made it ring all the more true.

_But maybe it was a good thing that they were replacing her_, she suddenly realized.

Once she was gone again, she knew that he would be taken care of.

* * *

When Stef realized that Callie was going to stall in Jude's room, she walked back toward her own and into their bathroom, watching Lena as she got out of the shower.

"Is something wrong, babe?" she asked as she finished wrapping a towel around her body.

"Have you noticed that Callie has been acting differently since she came back yesterday?" Stef asked as she followed Lena into the bedroom.

"Differently how?" Lena asked as she opened her closet and began pulling out her outfit for the day.

"Well, for starters, she seems a bit more reserved…kind of like the way she was when we first brought her here…Come to think of it, the only person she's really talking to is to Jude."

"Well, it makes sense," Lena started, "She did get taken out of our house out of nowhere, Stef."

"Yes, but she's back now, safe and sound. But… I don't know. Do you think she's mad at us for it? I know that we apologized but…Suddenly it just doesn't seem like enough, you know?"

"Did you talk to her about it?"

"Every time I ask her if she's okay, she keeps saying that she's fine—"

"Then, maybe she's fine and you're just—"

"Overreacting?" Stef tried to finish for her, but her tone showed that she was angry that Lena would think that.

"No," Lena began to defend, "Projecting maybe?"

"What do you mean?" Stef asked. And now, she suddenly thought that Lena should have probably left it at overreacting.

"Honey, I know you feel guilty about what happened—"

"Of course, I do," Stef replied matter-of-factly.

"Well, maybe you're just projecting those feelings onto Callie. If you're not feeling okay and you keep asking her and asking her if she is, she's going to feel weird about it."

"Yeah, maybe. But does that explain why she wanted to go wake up Jude this morning?" Stef asked unconvinced by Lena's explanation. But Lena's smile made her feel like she was the one going crazy.

"There could be a ton of reasons as to why she wanted to be the one to wake him up, babe. Maybe she wanted to talk to him about something. I'm pretty sure it's not a cause for concern to want to wake up your brother," she smiled.

"It does sound pretty stupid now that you repeat it back to me," Stef gave a short laugh.

"It's not stupid… It's okay to feel worried about her. And if there is something going on, and I'm not saying that there is, but if there is, then we have to give Callie the space to get used to things again…the way that they were. Not with the constant hovering and all."

"I'm not hovering," Stef tried to defend, but her tone depicted guilt, and Lena's raised eyebrows thought otherwise. "Okay, maybe just a little, but—"

"—You're not going to do it anymore," Lena finished in a much more stern voice.

Stef let out a frustrated sigh, "Fine," she finally agreed, which caused Lena to laugh. "What's so funny?"

"You looked exactly like Mariana when you did that."

Stef made a face and kissed her wife, "Speaking of Miss Thing, I have to go bang on the bathroom door now."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

Callie was thankful when she finally arrived at her school, because it was a place where she didn't have to think about everything that had been going wrong lately. Sure Lena would be there too, but rarely did the girl see her during her classes, and she was thankful for the escape from their home.

When she was at their house, all she thought about was anything and everything that could mess things up for her at any second.

At least at school, she was able to concentrate on other things.

Even her statistics test that she was sure she failed, because she had completely forgotten about having one.

Her psychology essay about dream interpretations, which she probably failed as well. Callie knew that Lena would probably be upset about it, but it wasn't like she actually had the time or the will to follow the stupid experiment. How would that experiment even work anyway? There's no way in hell you can force yourself to remember your dreams. They couldn't blame her for not remembering the things she did in her subconscious.

_And why would she want to recall her dreams, when she was already living in a nightmare?_

When the bell rang, she glanced over at her essay and she knew it was too late to go back and bs it now. _Should she even hand it in?_ she wondered. But before she could process her question, Mrs. Wilson collected her paper from the desk and kept moving down the aisle.

_Shit!_ Callie thought to herself.

_Oh well, at least she was honest._

And a ten was a better grade than a zero, she reasoned, as she practically ran out of the room and toward her next class.

* * *

It wasn't until she appeared in his doorway that she realized that she was wrong.

She was wrong about this place being her escape.

One look at the biological-father of Lena's child was enough to have a thousand more worries run through her mind all at once.

_There was a baby coming. _

That was something she was able to forget just by not looking down from Lena's face when she spoke with her.

_So what if not finding Robert wasn't the reason that she didn't get adopted?_

_What if they end up changing their minds about the adoption completely after the baby is born?_

It's no secret that babies bring about all kinds of stresses for adults.

Callie learned that the hard way when the last foster-parents, who promised to adopt her and Jude, had a baby of their own. They kept them around for a little while after the kid was born because they needed a baby sitter. They even promised to finalize their adoptions until that day the father offered to take the two siblings to the park.

_At ten and seven years old, how would they have known_ _that he would be dropping them off at their social worker's house instead?_

_How stupid was she to believe them before and even more stupid to believe the same lie again?_

"Good afternoon, Callie," Timothy offered as he watched her stare into space in the middle of his doorway. "Will you be joining us today?" he asked with a smile. And that was when she realized that everyone in the entire class had been staring at her for God knows how long.

"No," she answered abruptly. "Is it okay if I go to the nurse?"

"Um…Sure. Let me write you a pass," he offered as he reached for his passbook in his drawer. But when he looked back up, she was no longer in sight.

Callie walked away as fast as she could and made her way into the girls' bathroom.

* * *

The moment she threw the door open, two blonde hair and blue-eyed twins eyed her with disgust and rolled their eyes before making their way out of the bathroom.

Normally, this would've bothered her a little bit. But she was thankful for the time alone that their departure had brought her.

She quickly checked the bottom of the stalls, to make sure that she was, in fact alone before she ran toward the last bathroom stall, not wanting to waste any time before someone could walk in and ruin this for her.

The urge to do it had never been so strong as it was in this moment, and Callie couldn't understand why all of a sudden everything just intensified with one look at Timothy.

It was like she didn't even have a place to escape from her worries and everyday she just kept imagining more and more reasons that could destroy it all again.

Even now, she was waiting for her named to be called over the loudspeaker because Elaine was here to pick her up.

Again.

But in her imagination, it was Lena's voice, which just made everything all the more worse.

She quickly slammed the stall shut and shoved her hand into her pocket for the blue lighter she had become obsessed with and studied every inch of. She hadn't ever fallen in love with an object, and she wondered if this obsessiveness with her lighter would qualify under objectophilia. Or maybe it wasn't the lighter, but the fire itself. And if it was the fire she felt a connection to, then the entire objectophilia argument just falls apart because fire is an indirect object, which can only exist when using a direct object to make it.

_Hence fire isn't an object._

_Or maybe it was the pain she received from the fire that made her yearn for the lighter?_

Something to keep her mind off of the awful thoughts she was dealing with or some way to punish herself for believing she was responsible for them.

She wasn't entirely sure why she would burn herself, but all she knew was that it made her feel better and allowed her to breathe.

When she grabbed the object into her hand, she examined it closely like she always had in her palms, studying just how much gas was left.

By now, it wasn't much, considering just how often she had used it. But that didn't stop her from flicking it on and studying the blue and yellow colors that were ignited. The flames had gotten lower, which only meant that she had to stick the lighter closer against her skin to feel something. But she didn't mind.

It was the stress of what she would do when the lighter was empty that worried her the most.

* * *

When Stef arrived home from work, all of her children were sitting at the dinner table, waiting for her. "Hey, my babies," she said as she walked in and saw them all talking away and examined the table to find pizza rather than a homemade dinner. "Pizza?" she asked in confusion and smiled at her children, "Uhuh. Which one of you is in trouble?" she asked teasingly.

All five of them looked at each other as they tried to figure it out themselves, before they glanced back over at the blonde.

"Oh, one of you is in trouble," she assured them. "If your mama can't even concentrate enough to make dinner, at least one of you did something…" she said as she waited for one of them to confess something, but none of her kids gave in.

"Then, we should start getting in a lot more trouble," Jesus joked, which caused all of the other kids to laugh.

"Oh, laugh now," Stef said cryptically. "Whichever one of you it was just missed your last chance to come clean and won't be laughing for quite a while," she concluded as she walked out of the kitchen, leaving all of her children with fearful looks on their faces as she went up the stairs to find Lena.

When she reached the top, she opened her bedroom door, "Lena?" she said as she went inside and walked around the room and checked the inside of their bathroom for her wife and was surprised when she didn't find her there.

"Lena?" Stef called louder as she walked out of their room.

"In here!" Lena answered. And from Stef's hearing, it sounded like her voice was coming from Jesus' room, which worried her.

When the blonde entered, she saw Lena lifting Jesus' mattress as if she were in search for something.

"Hey! Hey! Hey! What are you doing?" Stef began as she grabbed the mattress from Lena, so that her pregnant wife wouldn't keep holding something so heavy.

Lena let go of the mattress instinctively, knelt down onto the floor, and began searching under his bed, while Stef dropped the mattress back onto it.

"Lena?" Stef asked in a concerning voice, as she reached down to pick up her wife from the floor. "What on earth are you doing?" Stef eyed the woman carefully, trying to read the woman's thoughts, when it appeared as if she wasn't going to say anything.

"I found this… in the bathroom," Lena said as she raised her hand to open her fist and show Stef the blue lighter.


	4. Chapter 4

Stef stared at the lighter in Lena's hand for a few seconds as she tried to think of all of the possibilities in her mind. "And you think its Jesus'?"

Lena held her mouth open as she tried to find the words to speak, "I don't know what to think, Stef. I didn't want to accuse anyone until I was absolutely sure who it belonged to. Which is why—"

"You were going to destroy all of our children's bedrooms?" Stef continued with her eyebrows raised.

It wasn't that she wasn't as upset as Lena was about the lighter, but she didn't like the idea of her pregnant wife going through all of that strife and lifting anything heavy, when there was another way to go about this.

"If that's what it took," Lena reasoned as if it was the most rational thing in the world.

"Give me the lighter," Stef said as she held her hand out for Lena to pass it over.

Lena sighed, "What are you going to do with it?"

"I'm going to find out exactly who it belongs to," Stef said matter-of-factly.

"You can't just go downstairs and yell at them."

"Who said anything about yelling?"

* * *

Once Stef and Lena appeared in the kitchen, all of their children raised their heads from their plates fearfully, which didn't help either woman at all, since they all looked suspicious.

"Hey," Brandon started, "What's going on?"

But rather than answer him, Stef approached her son and sniffed his sweater for any scent of cigarette smoke. "Uhhhhh…" he looked at her strangely and as soon as he was abut to say something Stef moved on to Mariana.

"Mom!" Mariana protested as she stared at her mother with confusion written all over her face and then back at Lena, hoping that she would put a stop to her insanity. But Lena just crossed her arms and just watched as Stef moved onto Callie and the rest of the kids.

Once she was done, she leaned her palms against the table and thought about her next question. "Did any of you have anyone over the house either yesterday or today?" she asked as she eyed all of the teens carefully, waiting for their responses.

"What does that have to do with anything?" Brandon questioned.

"Yeah, what's going on?" Mariana continued.

"It's a simple question," Stef interrupted. "Did either of you invite anyone over in the past two days? Yes or no?"

"No," Callie answered for everyone, while all of the other kids just stared at their moms in confusion.

"Are you sure?" she asked again, honestly hoping that one of them would change their minds and give them a different answer.

"We're sure," Jesus reiterated.

Stef stood up straight and crossed her arms over her chest before continuing, "The reason I ask is because I cleaned your bathroom from top to bottom a couple of days ago. And…" She paused and looked over towards her wife before she kept going, "We found this in the bathroom. Your bathroom, more specifically," she finished as she placed the blue disposable lighter in the middle of the table.

Stef scanned her children's faces carefully to find any signs of guilt, but most of them seemed confused.

"It's a lighter, mom. I don't get it," Brandon said as if it were no big deal.

"Yes, Brandon. I'm well aware of that," Stef snapped, which took all of her children by surprise.

"Honey," Lena tried to calm her.

And it worked to some extent, because Stef forced herself to take a deep breath. "This lighter was not purchased by either one of us. That's the point that I'm trying to make here. We don't buy these disposable plastic lighters," Stef said with a drastic tone. "And if no one aside from us has stepped foot in this house, then that leads us to believe that it belongs to one of you. So who's is it?"

All of her children remained silent and stared at each other trying to figure it out for themselves.

For Callie, those thirty seconds felt like the longest thirty seconds of her life as she kept her eyes focused on the blue lighter on the table. And by then, everyone was staring at her as they came to the realization.

She could feel all of their eyes practically darting rays in her direction, but her mind was elsewhere.

_On the lighter._

_On the thought that she had probably screwed up for the last time._

When it was obvious that the lighter belonged to Callie, Stef and Lena both shared perplexed looks with each other. They hadn't wanted to admit it, but her and Jude were the last people they expected to have it.

Stef sighed and coughed nervously before she continued, "Callie, can we talk to you for a minute… outside?" Immediately afterwards, Stef grabbed the lighter from the table and began to walk out.

Callie shifted her seat outwards so that she could stand up and didn't even bother looking up at Lena before she began following the blonde. Lena walked closely behind her and made sure to close the door, so that none of the other children would overhear anything.

* * *

When Callie finally found the courage to glance up at them, she saw Stef pacing the back porch as if trying to mentally assess the situation herself.

Lena saw the nervous look on her daughter's face and realized that Stef's behavior wasn't helping anything at all. "Alright, why don't we all have a seat," Lena offered as she gestured toward the outdoor furniture, in hopes that Stef would be the one to sit down first.

But she wasn't.

Callie was. And she took a seat opposite the one from Lena. Afterwards, she made the mistake of looking up to face Stef, who was just staring back at her with a look of disappointment in her eyes.

Lena noticed Callie's fearful state and grabbed her wife's arm to pull her toward the couch so that she could sit down beside her.

Callie stared aimlessly at her fingers, wanting nothing more than to have the lighter that was in Stef's palm to be in her own. Just holding it would've been enough to get through this conversation with a little sense of ease. At least she would know that she would have something later on to take her mind off of it.

"Callie, is the lighter yours?" Lena asked carefully, not wanting to come off as accusing, but not wanting to ignore the situation completely at the same time.

The girl stared up at the woman for a few seconds and then glanced back down at her hands as she moved her thumb under her other hand as if she were flicking the lighter on.

Neither woman seemed to have noticed the motions of Callie's thumb, since it was being covered, but they could tell by her silence that it did in fact belong to her.

"I'm going to take that as a yes," Stef said sternly as she raised her eyebrows at the teen, but Callie still hadn't bothered to glance upwards, instead furrowing her own eyebrows and keeping her gaze on her fingers.

She knew very well that she should be paying full attention to what they were saying, but she couldn't get her mind off of where she was going to get another one or what she was going to use to burn herself afterwards.

"Why do you have it?" Stef questioned.

But Callie knew that she couldn't tell them the truth. They'd think that she was crazy and they'd definitely send her back. And probably to Helen's, to make matters worse. She tried to think of possible explanations in her mind but none of them seemed believable.

"It's not a trick question, Callie," Stef informed her.

"Are…" Lena paused for a second, not really wanting to ask her the question but realizing that she had not choice, "Are you smoking?"

Callie looked up from her hands at the woman through squinted eyes, "What? No," she argued. She couldn't figure out which was worse. Them thinking that she was burning herself or them thinking that she was smoking.

"Are you sure about that?" Stef asked as if she didn't believe her.

"Uh, yeah," Callie snapped, which just upset Stef even more and caused the blonde to tense up and take a deep breath.

"Then what do you need a lighter for?" she asked.

"I found it," Callie answered. _At least that was the truth_.

"Where?" Lena asked.

"At Helen's… And I thought it was cool so I kept it," Callie replied casually. She didn't lie at all, and she hoped that they wouldn't continue to ask questions so that she wouldn't have to. _She needed to end this conversation and she needed to end it now._ "I'm sorry that you're mad, but I didn't think it was a big deal," Callie paused, "It's just a lighter."

_And that was her first lie._

_It wasn't just a lighter to her._

Stef and Lena studied the girl's face and then glanced at each other, trying to communicate without words.

Lena decided to break the silence, "Alright, Callie. Can you give us a minute please?"

Callie glanced over at both Stef and Lena, and noticed that Stef wasn't even bothering to make eye contact anymore, which just made her feel even worse. She had disappointed the woman and she knew that it wouldn't lead to anything good. She considered apologizing again, but abruptly stood up and walked toward the house instead.

* * *

Once inside, she could see all of her other siblings watching her, but she stormed toward the stairs rather than explain. She couldn't deal with any more questions today and she wanted to be alone.

Callie began walking towards her bedroom, but she knew that Mariana might just follow her in, so she opted for the bathroom instead, locking the door right behind her and sinking onto the floor. She allowed for a few tears to escape her eyes, when she realized she couldn't hold them back for much longer.

They weren't even sad tears either. They were angry ones.

Her head began to throb and her breathing slowed. Instinctively, she tried to reach inside of her pocket for her lighter but realized that it was empty.

_How stupid was she to let it fall out like that?_ she thought to herself.

_The one thing that was keeping her together was now in the hands of someone else, and it would never be returned to her._

She needed to feel pain. She needed to feel something to help her keep from falling apart.

She glanced up and tried to see through her blurry vision for something else to use, forcing herself to wipe her tears away because now she was on a mission.

Frantically, she opened the cabinets and shuffled all of the objects around for something, _anything_, that could help her.

* * *

And as soon as she was feeling completely hopeless, she glanced upwards and her eyes instantly darted towards Mariana's curling iron, as if someone was telling her exactly where to look.

Callie stood up immediately and released the cord from the iron and jabbed it into the electrical socket, making sure to hit the ON button. She encircled her palm around her iron and breathed out a sigh of relief when she felt it warming up in her hand. She quickly lifted up her shirtsleeve to reveal her forearm and could still see the tiny circle on her skin, which reminded her of the close call she had with Stef that very morning. Pulling her sleeve back down, she scanned her body for some other place that she was positive would go undetected by anyone.

She needed to do this quickly, so she lifted up the hem of her shirt all the way upwards and let her chin hold it in place, placing the curling iron instantly on her torso and allowing the rising heat to comfort her skin.

At first she felt practically nothing, which just made her even more agitated. But when the temperature kept rising she held her breath and covered her mouth to hold back her scream.

When it became too much for her to bear, she removed the iron from her body and let out a deep breath. She contemplated on whether or not that was enough, but the disappointed look on Stef's face was still clear as day in her mind, causing her to suck in another breath and place the iron once again on another area of her belly. But this time she released it much quicker than before.

_This device was much stronger than her lighter,_ she realized.

She could hold the lighter up to her skin for almost twenty seconds before having to stop, but this method was like having instant gratification in her own hands.

Again she stared at the device with admiration before taking in another breath and placing it again, on another area of her torso. And once the pain became too much for her, she realized that she had punished herself enough for today.

Callie reached for the cord and pulled it out of its socket, letting it fall onto the floor and placing the object onto the marble counter.

She went to wipe her tears away, but realized they had already dried before looking at herself in the mirror. Seeing the large pink marks that now covered her skin, suddenly made her feel better, as she admired their shape in the reflection.

They weren't bleeding at all and they didn't look that bad, but she could still feel the stinging on her skin, as if the heat from the iron was still being pressed against it, which was enough to keep her satisfied.

Callie grabbed the hand-towel at the same time as she turned on the sink, putting it under the running water before she held it against her new wounds. And it was strange to her, how the contact could feel so relieving and yet so painful at the same time.

She pulled her shirt back down and twisted the towel until all of the water had been drenched out.

And that's when she realized; she didn't need the blue lighter as much as she thought…


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thank you guys for reviewing. I always mean to add this note, but I'm not sure if it comes off as annoying, so I don't :P**

* * *

By the time Callie got into a comfortable enough position to sleep, the alarm on her phone went off, which caused her to open her eyes. For a split second, she questioned if she even slept at all. _How did all of those hours pass by in just a blink of an eye?_ But when she picked up her phone to shut it off, she noticed that it was in fact 6:30 am.

Maybe she had slept.

Either way, she had to get up and get ready for school.

But the moment she sat upright, she felt a sharp pain on her abdomen and she knew exactly what it was. The same pain that had kept her up all night had now intensified at the sudden movement, and she silently wondered why.

_This wasn't how all her other burns felt… and for a second she regretted making them._

_But only for a second._

Afterwards she rationalized that maybe the long-lasting pain was a good thing.

Maybe she wouldn't have to keep burning herself if the previous burns still hurt enough to keep her calm. And ultimately that's all she was trying to do, to keep calm and keep from falling apart.

She didn't feel on edge anymore and _this_ was what she wanted.

Callie walked out of her and Mariana's bedroom quietly, not wanting to wake her up just yet. She needed the bathroom to herself for a minute so that she could get some privacy, which is exactly why she set her alarm ten minutes earlier than Mariana would normally wake up.

Without thinking, she walked out of the room and into the bathroom so that she could shower first. And before taking off her clothes she turned the knob of the shower on cold, not wanting to irritate her skin with even more heat.

At least not for now…

But the second she removed her shirt, she was greeted with three long and pink blisters covering her abdomen. Two filled with liquid, and one burst, which she just realized had been the sharp pain she felt when she sat up from her bed.

The scene both terrified and disgusted her at the same time. But there was another feeling that came along with it…

Relief.

Relief that she was still feeling the pain.

Relief that she was dealing with her own problems by herself, like she always had.

And relief that she had something that would take her mind off of the terrible deck she was dealt.

Surprisingly, even to her, she liked the fact that she could see the pain she caused, unlike how this all started.

At first, she was glad when the burns from her lighter vanished so quickly because it made her feel like what she was doing to herself wasn't that bad since she couldn't see the evidence.

But suddenly, seeing it made her feel better than not seeing anything at all.

If she were focused on the constant pain and the ugliness that now surrounded her body, then she wouldn't be able to focus on anything else. She suddenly admired these three new burns in the mirror and didn't see them as disgusting anymore.

Maybe Stef and Lena finding the lighter wasn't such a bad thing.

She barely felt anything with the small blue lighter over the past few days, as compared to last night until this morning. And it wasn't like anyone would notice if she kept hurting herself in the same spot.

She made it her mission to think of another device to take to school while she was in the shower.

She needed something just in case she got the urge again.

* * *

Stef was the first to wake up in the morning and the last to go down every night. And the first thing she would do when she got up was turn on the coffee pot before her shower.

But when she got out of her bedroom, she noticed that the light in the kids' bathroom was on.

At first, she thought that Mariana had woken up earlier again and couldn't find the use in going back to bed for five minutes. But when she stepped closer towards the bathroom door and leaned her head in she heard the sound of wrappers being opened.

The second she was about to say something; she heard a small sob escape from someone's mouth. If Stef wasn't fully awake before, she surely was now as her eyes widened in full alert.

She contemplated on what to say, but her mind was going through all of the possibilities and she didn't want to overreact over something without knowing exactly what was going on. That's what she did yesterday with Callie and she didn't want to make things worse, if it was her behind the door. But something is Stef's gut was telling her that it was.

After a little while, she heard another wrapper open and Stef could tell automatically that it was in fact a band-aid wrapper. She knocked softly on the door in an effort not to wake up any of the other kids, "Callie?" she spoke in the softest voice that she could muster, not wanting to frighten her even more. "Are you alright, sweets?" she asked as she impatiently waited for a response, trying her best to keep from barging in unannounced.

For a few seconds she hadn't heard a sound and that's when she realized that it had to be Callie. But on the other side of the door the teen was frozen in place trying so hard not to make any noise that would cause for concern, "Yea-ahh," she answered nervously as she pushed all of her weight onto the door, so that Stef couldn't come in.

She wasn't sure if she locked it, but the fact that Callie was just standing in the bathroom in her bra and underwear put her at immediate risk for exposure, "I'm fine, Stef," Callie lied and she wondered if the blonde would notice. "Did I wake you up?" she asked with sudden worry evident in her voice, as she reached for her blue robe that was hanging on the hook on the door.

"No, no," Stef assured. "I'm always up at this time," she tried to sound calm even though she could feel Callie's weight shift on the door, when the door pressed against her own ear, which made her even more irritable.

"Okay," Callie answered even though she wasn't entirely sure that what the woman said was true. The thought of waking Stef up and giving her any more reason to send her away, was enough to make Callie completely forget about the pain from her burns and risk making another one.

_Needing_ to make another one.

The entire time Stef was on the other side of the door, all Callie was thinking about was how she would make her next one. Mariana would be waking up any second and would rush into the shower. She would instantly notice if her curling iron was gone.

_What the hell was she going to use?_ she thought to herself as she heard another "Okay," escape Stef's mouth and listened for her footsteps walking away.

* * *

Once she felt she was safe enough, she locked the door of the bathroom, not wanting to be disturbed as she put on her blue robe and searched for another device. She grabbed a green basket and started looking frantically for something.

Pretty soon all of her siblings would be up and she wouldn't have anything to take to school with her.

The first thing she finds is a box of sewing needles. She makes a face but pulls one out and wraps it in toilet paper before sticking it in the pocket of her robe. She wasn't sure if it would be much use to her, having never used one to pierce her skin herself, but she wasn't really planning on using it anyway.

It was just a backup.

* * *

Stef purposely added more footsteps to her walk, because she had wanted Callie to think that she went downstairs. The one thing that she knew about Callie was that she could pretend to be fine, when deep down she absolutely wasn't. The teen had fooled both her and Lena and pretended as if everything was okay the day that she first stayed with them, and it was obvious afterwards that it was far from okay for the girl.

But ever since she had been taken away from them by the CPS worker, Stef noticed that little by little Callie was reverting back to her old ways, and it frightened the woman.

And it frightened her even more that she was the only one noticing.

_Was she imagining all of these things?_

_Callie was barely smiling anymore._

_Keeping close to no one besides her brother._

_And barely making conversation, unless it was to answer questions that she was being asked. Even answering questions had been like pulling teeth with her nowadays._

_Only this time it was different. _

_This time it was worse because all of them had already fallen in love with the girl. _

She wondered how long this behavior would last until things were back to the way they were.

Stef silently walked into Jesus' room and toward the bathroom door, since that was the only other way to get inside of the kids' bathroom. She contemplated on turning the knob once again, remembering that her wife had suggested that Callie needed the space and she didn't need Stef hovering over her.

Stef knew that this would constitute as hovering, but Callie's sob and desperate need to keep Stef out of the bathroom, kept replaying in her mind and she needed to go with her gut on this one, despite the fact that it was wrong sometimes.

Before she could change her mind, she twisted the doorknob and pushed it open quickly, finding Callie putting away a basket as if nothing was wrong. Aside from the confused look on Callie's face, it looked to Stef as if the teen had been crying by the redness in her eyes.

The second that Stef was about to ask if she was okay, she noticed the empty band-aid wrappers on the sink counter, alongside the Neosporin and the rubbing alcohol...

* * *

**To be continued…**

**Will Stef find out about the burning next chapter? Any predictions? **

**And P.S. for those of you reading **_**That Was Then, This is Now**_**, I will be updating in a few hours. I know I've been slacking a little on that one, and you can blame my writer's block. But I can't put it off for forever, so yeah. Just letting you know :)**


	6. Chapter 6

Stef glanced over at the items on the sink counter and let her eyes quickly dart back to the teen, "Callie, what happened? Are you okay?" she asked worriedly as she began to scan every inch of her daughter's exposed body with her eyes. But all she was able to note was that her face, neck, hands, and legs didn't have a scratch on them.

Once Callie realized that Stef had seen the items on the sink counter, she immediately grabbed the empty band-aid wrappers and crumpled them in her hands to throw them in the trash, silently hoping that Stef hadn't noticed them or wouldn't make a big scene over it. As she threw them in the garbage bin, she wondered if her eyes were still red from crying. She kept her gaze down just in case. "Yes, I'm fine," she answered as she tried to grab the running alcohol to put it back under the cabinet. She knelt to the floor to open one of the cabinet doors, but Stef immediately grabbed her wrist before she was able to grab the Neosporin and knelt down with the girl.

"Hey, hey, slow down," she instructed as she saw how frantically Callie was moving when Stef walked in unannounced. "You're scaring me, sweets," Stef admitted as she tried to move Callie's face toward hers, but Callie wouldn't let her and stiffened her face away from the woman.

"What are you talking about?" she asked as she threw the rubbing alcohol and the Neosporin in the cabinet as if her problems would be gone the second just got rid of the evidence.

"Where are you hurt?" Stef asked as she kept her grip on Callie's wrist so that she wouldn't be able to get up without answering her. If Callie had been crying than she must've been in a lot of pain.

"I'm not hurt!" Callie yelled defensively as she ripped her arm from Stef's grip and stood up to leave.

Stef stood up just as Callie did and followed her towards the door. She was thankful when the lock on it caused for some stalling.

"Callie, stop. You're not in trouble," Stef said as she tried to grab Callie's shoulder to turn her around but the teen pushed her hand away the second it touched her and whipped around angrily.

The panic in her voice and eyes were all of a sudden gone and replaced with pure anger instead, "Don't touch me! Don't you dare touch me!" she yelled at the blonde. Her eyes were piercing rays at the woman in front of her, as if she had never seen her before.

Stef stood there speechless and looked back at the teen as if she had just been slapped hard across the face. The sudden outburst caught the woman off-guard, since she had never been spoken to like that, by any of her children. And she thought that if it ever did happen, the last person she thought it would've been was Callie.

Callie took Stef's frozen reaction as her opportunity to flee. She turned around to twist the door knob and pull it open enough, to get out and escape Stef's vision.

Just as Callie exited the bathroom, she saw Lena coming out of her own room, "Callie, what's going on?" she asked immediately, when she saw the teen walking quickly toward her and Mariana's room. "Callie!" Lena shouted after she realized that she wasn't going to get a response.

But Callie slammed her bedroom door closed and ran towards her closet to pull out some clothes to put on. She felt too vulnerable in just her blue robe and knew that with just the tug on one of the strings, her burns would be exposed.

She didn't think that Stef or Lena would go that far, but she hadn't expected Stef to touch her either.

And that's why she snapped at her.

That's why she stared at the woman the way she did.

She'd rather risk Stef hating her for that, than being disgusted with her for finding out the truth. She knew that her attitude would have consequences later on and but she also knew that she deserved them. And she was going to keep up this behavior until they either let it go or gave up with her in general.

At the sound of the slamming of the door, Stef snapped out of it and walked out of the bathroom and met her wife.

"What the hell happened in the two seconds since you woke up, Stef?" Lena asked and stared at Stef, as the blonde led her back into her bedroom.

Stef closed the door, "Something's wrong, Lena."

"Stef, come on. What did you do? I thought we agreed to stop hovering over her. You can't just—"

"No, Lena," Stef begged her wife to understand with both her eyes and her voice, "Something is really wrong here. I can feel it."

"Stef—"

"She was crying in the bathroom and I kept hearing band-aid wrappers. And when she realized I was there, she pushed onto the door, so that I couldn't get in. Which is why I opened the door from Jesus' room and—"

"You did wha—"

"There were empty bandaid wrappers, Lena. And the alcohol and the Neosporin was out and when I asked her about it, she kept saying that nothing happened, but her eyes were red and she started freaking out. Lena, I'm not imagining this."

"Oh my God," Lena mumbled as her eyes widened. "You don't think…she wouldn't."

"What else am I supposed to think?"

"Well, did you check her wrists?" Lena's voice raised in pitch, at the horrific thought. She hadn't wanted to think it, but with all that Stef was saying, cutting was the only thought that popped into both of their minds.

"She had her robe on. I couldn't see that far. But the second I touched her, it was like she became this other person. Like she put some kind of a wall up from me, and I fell for it because I let her storm out and… God! Who knows what she's doing now?" Stef said as she realized it was stupid to let Callie storm toward her room like that.

"Stef, wait!" Lena began as she pulled her wife's arm. "We need to make a plan. We can't just barge in—"

"Well, I don't know what to do, Lena."

"Go take a shower. I'll talk to Callie."

"No way," Stef pursed her lips and shook her head at the suggestion.

Lena looked at her wife in confusion, "Why not?"

"You didn't see how she reacted, Lena. I'm not going to leave you alone with her. No, not while she's like that."

"You and I both know that Callie would never hurt me," Lena reasoned.

"We haven't had to deal with this side of her before. And I can't take that chance. You never know what people are capable of doing when they're this scared. And I know that's what's happening. She went from panicked to angry in two seconds and I won't have you around her just yet. Not in your state, nope," Stef looked down at her wife's belly.

"My state?" Lena questioned.

"You know what I meant."

Lena nodded, even though Stef's comment did get to her. She didn't like being seen as completely useless as her wife was making her feel, especially when it came to not being able to help her own daughter. "So what are you suggesting?"

Stef let out a frustrated breath, "We'll just keep everything normal for the kids and tell them that Callie's sick and I'm going into work late, I guess."

"And what are you really going to do?"

"Well, I haven't figured that part out quite yet," Stef admitted as she kissed her wife on the forehead and left the room.

**To be continued...**


	7. Chapter 7

Stef quickly walked over toward the girls' bedroom door, from the fear that Callie would continue to hurt herself, if she wasn't in the right state of mind. But she came to an abrupt pause before her hand reached for the doorknob, taking in one last breath in an attempt to prepare herself for the worst possible scenario.

She pulled the door open quickly, half-hoping to catch the girl off-guard and half-hoping that she'd catch her asleep, so that she could come to the realization that she had dreamt the whole thing. She wasn't prepared for this, _any _of this.

But instead, Callie was sitting on the edge of her bed dressed in a long-sleeved and buttoned cardigan and some jeans. She was putting on her converse sneakers when she looked up at the sudden sound of the door opening. She immediately lowered her head again and took her time tying her shoes, so that she wouldn't have to look Stef in the eye. She would do anything to avert her gaze.

Stef keeps her own eyes on Callie hands as she watches the girl struggle to tie her shoes on account of not being able to keep her hands steady. The classic sign of nervousness just makes Stef even more sure, that her hunch is right. Callie wouldn't bee acting like this if she had gotten hurt on accident. But she tries to remain calm and not ask the questions that are burning a hole through her mind, until the house is empty. But that doesn't keep her from eyeing her wrists every couple of seconds, hoping that the wind would automatically lift up Callie's sleeves and she could see just how bad the cuts were.

She wasn't even entirely sure how to go about all of this. But she would take the time that everyone was using, to get dressed and have breakfast, to figure out a method.

Callie got up after tying triple knots on both of her shoes and grabbed her brush from her dresser to begin combing her hair. Her eyes focused on the brush in the mirror as she quickly stroke the strands of hair, in an attempt to untangle the knots that had formed from the night before, from the constant movement she made since she didn't sleep.

"Mariana, sweets."

"Hm?" the girl asked as she opened her eyes.

"It's time to wake up?" Stef said softly as she pulled the covers off of her, letting her know that she should move fast.

"What happened?" Mariana questioned as she rubbed her eyes in confusion.

"Don't worry about it. Just grab your clothes and whatever else you need to leave the house. You guys have to get out a little earlier today, okay? I need your room so grab your shoes, backpack, any anything else you're going to need…"

Mariana squinted her eyes at her mother, as if making sure she was really there.

"Quickly," Stef added as she lifted her daughter up and gently pushed her in the direction of her closet. While Mariana pulled out a skirt and tank top, Stef helped her by grabbing the girl's book bag and some flats that would match.

Once Mariana's eyes were fully opened, she turned her attention to her foster-sister in confusion. "What about Callie? Why aren't you kicking her out?" the teen replies with an attitude.

Stef hands her the book bag and flats, not wanting to answer her question with as much anger as she felt at the moment. "She's sick, so just go. Please?" Stef practically begged as she pushed the teen out the door.

"I'm not sick," Callie spat back.

Stef ignored the comment, "If you need anything else, just go borrow something from my room."

Mariana huffed as she walked out of her bedroom, and Stef heard her mumbling something about being kicked out of her own room. She shook her head before she turned around to see her other daughter, grabbing her backpack from under her own bed and throwing it over her shoulder, before she began walking towards the door. But Stef quickly shut it and leaned her all of her weight against it.

* * *

Callie wasted no time reaching for the doorknob and trying to pull the door open, but Stef's strength was clearly stronger than hers, as she held the door in place without any sign of a struggle. The blonde closed her eyes as she tried to find the strength to remain calm. In the meantime, she placed the heel of her slipper on the bottom of the door, forcing it closed. "Callie," she started as she took a deep breath.

"Why are you doing this, Stef? I have to get to school."

Stef opened her eyes and look down at the girl, "You're not going to school today, baby."

"What? Why not?"

"You know why," Stef said, trying to keep all emotion out of it for now. She couldn't lose it just yet, and least of all in front of the teen.

She was a cop.

It was easy for her to keep a straight face in all sorts of situations, but she hadn't expected it to be so hard when it was her own daughter trying to fight her.

Callie reached for the doorknob and twisted it again, this time trying even more desperately to pull it open with both hands now. It finally budged a little but Stef pushed her weight onto it even more as if her life depended on it.

Or worse…her daughter's.

Once her own emotions became too much for her to bear, she had to say something, "Callie. That's enough! Go sit down!" she yelled at the teen and half-expected her to retaliate with a slap across her face.

Callie flared her nostrils at the women and kept her gaze focused on her as she spoke, but her mind was somewhere else, "Or what?!" she snapped as she matched Stef's tone of voice.

Pissing the older woman off seemed like a more reasonable option than allowing the blonde see the burns on her body.

"Callie, I am just as stubborn as you are," Stef continued, completely aware of the fact that Callie was purposely trying to piss her off. "I can stand here all day and night if I have to, and you know it," Stef said in the softest tone she could muster. "…I would prefer not to—"

"Then don't!" Callie interrupted.

Stef smiled as she tried her best to convey to Callie that the girl's plan to push her away wasn't working. "Oh, I won't. Believe me. I won't. Even if I have to handcuff you to my own body and take you to work with me for the entire week, I wont… But I need you to stay calm right now, okay? You're not in trouble. _Yet_," she added with emphasis. "Do you understand that?"

"Then, why are you locking me in here?" Callie tried to yell but it came out in a croaked voice instead. Once she realized how vulnerable she sounded, she closed her eyes and try to swallow hard, so that her voice wouldn't give in. She tried her best to forget everything that was happening at the moment, no mater how badly Stef standing in front of the door reminded her of Helen locking her in that room. "I don't want to be locked in here, Stef," She responded coldly. "Not even with you."

Stef kept her eyes focused on the girl's and noticed the glisten that began to appear in them, when she repeated her last words. She had said them to hurt Stef and had succeeded in doing just that, but Stef also realized she had succeeded more in hurting herself somehow.

As soon as Callie felt the tears forming in her own eyes, she whipped her body around from the woman, walked over toward her bed, and sat all the way in the corner. She lifted her knees up toward her chest and wrapped her arms around them, burying her head in between her knees and body and cursing herself for saying too much. _Had Stef caught on? Or did she think she was crazy? _It was obvious which one Callie would have preferred.

Stef removed her weight from the door slowly. And even though she wanted to wrap the girl in her arms at that exact moment, she refrained from doing so, from the fear the Callie would retract from the physical contact. Stef took a few steps forward and glanced around the room, as if she would find the answer on what exactly she should do somewhere lying around, but she of course didn't.

"Callie…"

"Stef, I don't want to talk," Callie tried to yell but it came out muffled because her head was still down.

"Okay," Stef said as she sat on Mariana's bed, which caused Callie to lift her head up and stare at the door, back at Stef, and then back at the door. "If you think that I can't get back to that position in a milli-second _flat_, think again," Stef replied sternly as she stared at Callie warningly.

Callie looked away from her and sighed, "I want to sleep," Callie continued. In all honestly, she didn't even want to sleep and she didn't even think she'd be able to, but she could've used the escape from reality for a little bit.

Stef nodded and spoke, which surprised Callie, "Fine."

"I want you to leave," Callie responded a little more harshly.

"Don't push your luck, kid," Stef answered as she fluffed up Mariana's pillows before she lay backwards, so that she could still see the girl.

Callie rolled her eyes as she pushed the covers of her bed to the side, so that she could get her body under it as quickly as possible. But that wasn't before she contemplated on whether or not she should remove her shoes though. She figured that she needed them in case worse came to worse.

Stef watched as the girl turned her entire body around and threw the covers over it, so that the woman couldn't even see a strand of her hair. And it took every bone in her body, not to run up and check her wrists just incase the girl had cut to deep.

She allowed herself to lay farther back onto the bed and stare at the ceiling, as she tried to find the courage to determine exactly how to handle this.

**To be continued…**


	8. Chapter 8

An hour and a half later, Stef heard the door slam shut and she knew that Lena and the kids had left for school. She could hear the car turn on from the girls' room upstairs and she knew that she had waited long enough.

The goal was to keep Callie calm for long enough so that she wouldn't scare the other kids, especially Jude. But now that they were all gone, she felt a sigh of relief coming on, because now she could check the girl for any signs of cuts. But when she glanced over at the pile of sheets on top of Callie's bed, she couldn't help but wonder if the teen was really asleep or not.

Stef tried to sit up from her spot on Mariana's bed as slowly as possible, but she flinched every time she heard the bedsprings squeak at the movement of her body lifting itself off of it. All the while, making sure to keep her gaze focused on her daughter for any sign of movement herself.

It didn't take long for the blonde to reach the pile of comforters that Callie was using as a shield to block Stef's vision of her. That's when she realized that Callie was more of a kid, than she had realized. And truthfully, it scared her to think that. She had always thought of Callie as the most mature of her five children, but the simple avoidance technique just proved otherwise. That is the way children thought: _If I can't see them, they can't see me._

Stef leaned over the bed, making sure not to actually touch it nor the pile of comforters lying on top of it. She noticed the girl's eyes were closed and her breathing seemed somewhat even, at least for Callie. So it was safe for her to presume that she had fallen asleep.

For a second Stef just stared at how peaceful the girl looked and hesitated about waking her up and ruining her state completely.

But only for a second.

She would have to be prepared for the worst possible scenario. In her line of work, she knew that defensive people could take desperate measures in order to protect themselves from others. Stef began to slowly pull the comforter off of the teen, just waiting for Callie's arms to begin lashing out at her, forcing her to stop.

But they didn't.

She was in far too deep a sleep to wake up that easily. Once Stef was finally able to pull the covers off far enough, she noticed both of Callie's arms were completely covered by her maroon colored cardigan. One arm was pressed against her stomach and the other was a little farther off.

The blonde glanced at Callie's face again to make sure that she was still sleeping before she could check for anything. Her eyes were focused on Callie's, searching for any signs of her almost waking up, such as the flicker of her eyelids or the scrunching of her nose, but she was still. Stef kept her arms near Callie's just in case Callie did wake up and attack her accidentally. After taking a deep breath, she slowly pulled up the loose fitted sleeve on the teen's right arm, expecting to see cuts or bandages. She furrowed her eyebrows when she didn't, but knew better than to sigh in relief.

_There were a zillion places that she could cut, and wrists were just the most common_. She glanced at Callie's other arm and knew that it would be the most difficult to check because it was being held so close to her body and chances are there was a reason for that.

* * *

But slowly she tugged onto the sleeve, attempting to move it out of the way. But before she could finish, Callie's eyes blinked open with fear and she quickly jumped from the bed. Her instinctive actions caused Stef to back up quickly but not move from her spot beside the mattress.

"What are you doing?" Callie yelled as she backed up more and more until she was in the farthest corner from Stef, with her knees pinned upwards toward her body and her arms now covering her abdomen. Callie clenched them tightly against her, when she was almost positive the woman was trying to lift up her sleeve.

"Callie," Stef tried to soothe.

"I want you to get out," she said in an almost zombie-like tone and kept her eyes focused on Mariana's bed, rather than the woman in front of her.

Stef choked on her words before she finally spoke, "I can't do that," she shook her head slightly. "Callie…baby…look at me…"

Silence filled the air as Callie's eyes practically turned darker and darker, while at the same time widening with fear. No matter how hard she tried to block out the woman's voice, it just seemed to be getting louder and louder by the second. She felt her chest rising up and then down and suddenly couldn't remember how to breathe normally. She found herself counting the seconds in between each breath just to keep her mind off of Stef's presence.

"Callie, please look at me," Stef begged again and then found herself biting down on her bottom lip to keep from saying the wrong thing and frightening the teen. She struggled to search for the right words and then glanced down at Callie's fingers that were now turning white from how tightly they were being pressed against her body, in an attempt to conceal whatever she had done. "Sweets, I need you to show me your wrists," she tried, as she made sure to stay far enough so that she wouldn't appear as a threat, but close enough to remind Callie that she was still there and couldn't be avoided.

Callie's eyes immediately darted towards Stef and her eyebrows furrowed from confusion. "Why?" she snapped.

"Please. Just do this for me, Callie," she begged. She knew that it would be better if the teen felt like she had a choice in the matter, even though the older woman knew that wouldn't be the case if this didn't work.

Callie stared back at the woman and realized exactly what she was thinking. She thought she had cut her wrists. But rather than get upset about that, she felt something else.

_Relief._

The teen released her grip on her stomach, pulled both of her sleeves up, and held them outwards so that Stef could see. _This was good,_ she thought to herself. _If Stef realized that she was wrong about the cutting, she'd be forced to let it go right?_ "Happy?" she asked sarcastically as she eyed Stef with hint of satisfaction in her eyes, when she thought she had won the argument. "No cuts. Now can you get out?"

Stef saw the bare and untouched skin on her daughter's wrists and understood why Callie was so eager to show her them. So she knew that the next part would be the hardest. "Alright," she nodded, "…Now I'm going to need you to trust me okay?"

"Stef, what are you even talking about?"

The blonde ignored her daughter's question, "Do you trust me?"

"Why? Like you trust me?" she spat back. "You're the one who thinks I'm cutting!"

"Then, prove me wrong," Stef offered. "Show me where you got hurt, and I'll leave you alone. And don't try to tell me that you didn't get hurt again, because those band-aid wrappers were empty, Callie. So I know you used them." She eyed the girl sternly letting her know that she wasn't fooling anybody.

"I don't have to listen to you, Stef! You're not even my mom!" Callie yelled back as she tried to stand up and make her way off of the bed, but Stef was already standing and quickly blocked her path toward the door.

"You're not going to get rid of me that easily, Callie," the older woman said as she tried her best to push all of the emotions to the side for now. She wouldn't let Callie get away, just because she said something that really hurt her, with the intention of actually hurting her. "You can say or do whatever you want to hurt me, but I'm not going anywhere."

"Then I am," Callie replied with just as much lack of emotion. She rushed back over toward her nightstand and grabbed her cellphone off of the charger and brushed through the contacts.

Stef eyed her in confusion as she tried to understand what she was doing, but something in the back of her mind told her that she should be worried "Callie, what—"

"I'm calling Bill and I'm getting out of here," she answered for her before Stef could finish asking the question. Immediately afterwards, she pressed down on Bill's name on the screen and brought the phone up to her ear…

**To be continued.**


	9. Chapter 9

Callie only heard one ring when she held the phone up to her ear, before Stef snatched it from her palm. The sudden action caught the teen by surprise.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Callie asked the blonde as she tried to wrap her mind around why she was behaving this way. _If she wanted to leave, she was going to leave. They weren't going to force her to stay where she didn't want to._

Stef glared at the girl angrily before pressing the red button on the screen to end the call and bringing the phone to her side. "You don't get to do that."

"Do what? Call my social worker? Yes, I can! It's against the law to keep me from calling him, Stef! You of all people should know that!"

"I don't give a damn if it's against the law!" Stef snapped, not caring if she did in fact get in trouble for refusing the phone to her. "You don't get to use him as an out, Callie. It doesn't work that way. And you're not going to threaten me with wanting to leave just because—"

"Threaten you?" Callie asks sarcastically. "Don't you mean do what you wanted in the first place?" the girl spat back as she tried to reach for the phone in Stef's hand but the blonde quickly withdrew it back from her giving her yet another look.

"What?" Stef asked in an exasperated voice, finally getting some insight as to what had been bothering the girl. The only difference from not knowing before was that the small bit of information didn't put her at ease as she had thought it would. "Love, what are you talking about? You know I would never want you to leave. I—" Stef paused and sighed as she glanced away from Callie for a second, trying to understand why she would think that, but not being able to come up with an explanation at the moment. She took another deep breath before continuing and noticed Callie completely avoiding her gaze and shaking her head slightly as if she didn't believe a word that her mother was saying. But the welling of her eyes deceived her and gave her true feelings away. "…Sweets, why would you even think that?"

Callie crossed her arms over her abdomen in full defensive mode, not willing to allow Stef to break her down into talking or seeing the evidence from her burns either. That was what was most important above all else, making sure that she kept her mouth shut and didn't show anyone what she had done.

Stef immediately noticed the gesture but didn't give it much thought, since she was so focused on what to say next, "Callie, we can't fix any of this if you're not willing to talk to me."

"Who says I want to fix it? I'm perfectly fine with leaving it alone. I want to call Bill," Callie said in a practically emotionless tone.

"Sure, take the easy way out..." Stef started, hoping that the sudden comment would cause for some debate and get Callie to talk even more.

"Fine," Callie responded as she began to walk toward the door to use the house phone downstairs but Stef continued talking.

"You'd really leave your brother, and your entire family behind just because you're afraid? Is that it? …Running away _again_ because you're to scared to open you mouth and talk to me?"

Callie turned her body around before she got a chance to walk out the door, just as Stef had suspected she would, "You don't know what you're talking about, Stef."

"Maybe I don't, but I'm the only one that's actually saying something aren't I? You cannot honestly tell me that I'm wrong when you're doing nothing but proving me right. Are you really okay with leaving Jude again? Forget about everyone else for a second. Do you not realize what that would do to him?"

* * *

"You and Lena already adopted him. While I was gone, Mariana took my place just fine from what I can remember. Jude will be okay," she finished as she began racing down the stairs with Stef following closely behind her.

"Because he's adopted?"

"Yes," Callie responded quickly and sternly without even realizing she had probably revealed too much until a few seconds later, "…No. It doesn't matter! Just don't!" she yelled as she turned around when she reached the bottom to glare at the woman. She hated her even more now because she knew that she was trying to pull more and more information out of her and Callie was giving in.

"Don't do what baby?" Stef pleaded.

But Callie couldn't understand why she was making this so difficult. And why she still felt like crap for being the cause of Stef's own tears welling up in her eyes. Her mind kept darting back to the blue lighter that had made her feel so much better before and she wanted nothing more than to have it in her hands to give her the strength to get through the rest of this conversation without saying another word.

The focus on what she could do later when this was all over would've been something to look forward to, something to keep her mind off of everything that had gone on.

"Don't do what?" Stef repeated, trying to maneuver her position so that Callie would be forced to look her straight in her eyes.

"This," Callie croaked as she gestured toward the older woman's stance and tried to turn around and keep walking but Stef immediately grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer, locking her in a tight embrace. But rather than breaking down or fighting back like Stef had suspected she would, Callie began yelling in pain from the sudden pressure being placed on her wounds…


	10. Chapter 10

Promptly after listening to Callie's scream, Stef released the girl from both fear and realization. She watched carefully as Callie crouched her body a little and raised her hand to her abdomen. Her mouth hung open a bit from the pain but she immediately closed it and removed her hand, attempting to stand up straight in the process. But now, even straightening her posture pained her, causing her eyes to wince a little as she felt the burns even more and was almost positive the other blisters had burst at the contact.

_This wasn't supposed to happen_, Callie thought to herself. _The pain was never supposed to be this bad._

She glanced back down at her shirt to see if anything had soaked through. But then remembered that she purposely put on a black one for that very same reason.

Stef tried to keep her eyes off of the teen's stomach, as she too was fighting the urge to lift up the hem of her shirt to see exactly what had been done. She absolutely hated the fact that she had caused Callie even more pain by hugging her; more than she hated the fact that Callie had done it herself. When she was finally able to lift her attention to Callie's face, she noticed the panic in the girls eyes as she tried to avoid the blonde's gaze. Immediately, Callie crossed her arms over her abdomen again, "I'm sorry," she mumbled as she considered going for the house phone.

"For what?" Stef asked in confusion. If anything, she felt like she was the one who should be apologizing.

"Screaming in your ear," the teen mumbled as she tried to wipe away the tear that had managed to escape her eye and fallen onto her cheek. "It just hurt when you touched me," Callie confessed accidentally and she considered lying to Stef about where it hurt but knew it would be no use now.

Stef saw that Callie had opened her mouth to say something else but quickly withdrew and closed it. So she slowly grabbed onto her arm and began leading her to the sofa, "Come on, love. Let's sit," she said as she gently pushed the teen to the sofa and carefully sat her down first, before taking a seat right beside her, barely leaving any space in between them. The close proximity was something that both frightened Callie and strangely comforted her at the same time, and the confusion kept her from either moving closer or backing up even more.

She had been too busy trying to fight back the tears that were being held in, to want to keep fighting the woman off. She was struggling to keep her face straight as if she were perfectly fine. But it was obvious to both women who was actually winning this battle.

"Baby…I need you to lift up your shirt for me, okay?" Stef began.

"No," Callie said in a childish-like voice that Stef was already expecting. That much the girl was sure of. She wasn't going to show the woman her burns, not after everything she had said and done to prevent just that. _It would've all been for nothing._

"Hey," Stef whispered, "Honey, I already know what happened so the worst part is over, yes?"

Callie shook her head as she crossed her arms over her abdomen again, not caring that the contact was putting her through more pain. She would risk it before allowing Stef to see her like that.

"Look, I promise I'm not mad. All I want to do is make sure that you're okay," Stef reminded her as one of her hands carefully reached for Callie's forearm.

"You don't want to see it," Callie's voice raised as her grip only tightened around her body. "It's disgusting" she explained, "…I'm disgusting."

"You _are not_ disgusting, Callie. You hear me? You're not," she repeated in a stern voice, as she made sure not to avert eye contact. She took a deep breath before continuing in a much softer tone, "There's nothing you can show me or do that would gross me out or make me think any less of you. Do you understand that?" The teen remained silent, so Stef repeated herself again, "Callie, is that clear?"

Callie fidgeted a little in her seat as she tried to take in what Stef was saying. She wanted to believe her, but at the same time she wanted to fight her off. "I mean, come on. I'm a cop for Christ sake. I've dealt with way worse than this," Stef tried to joke, in order lighten the mood a little and make the girl feel more comfortable. But the truth was, she wasn't sure how she would react to seeing cuts on her daughter's body that she made herself.

Callie released a little pressure on her stomach, which Stef had noticed because her hand was still on Callie's arm. "Um," Callie started nervously as she tried to find the right words to say, "…they're not cuts." Stef squinted her eyes in confusion as she looked at her daughter and listened to what she was saying. "…They're burns. I just don't want you to be surprised when you…" Callie paused from how uncomfortable talking about it made her.

"Callie, I don't…" Stef stopped herself when she realized that she was going to say 'understand'. But truthfully she didn't understand what the girl was getting at. It didn't make any sense to her right away.

"Forget it. It's stupid," Callie said as she turned her gaze away from Stef and tried to stand back up.

"It's not," Stef stopped her as she grabbed hold of her arm and pulled her back down. "I'm sorry. I was just a little confused…Look, why don't we go to the bathroom so we can get a better look, yes? You know, that way we don't do this twice in two different places." And before waiting for an answer, the blonde stood up and snatched her reading glasses from the coffee table with one hand and gently grabbed Callie's arm with the other, leading her towards the downstairs bathroom.


	11. Chapter 11

During the walk toward the bathroom, Stef could both feel and hear Callie's feet dragging along the floorboard, but she thought it best not to speak. She wasn't willing to risk making a comment or doing something that would get Callie to regress back to the defensive mode she encountered this morning or even worse. She never wanted to see that side of her again.

_Callie was still walking beside her right? As long as she was complying, she wouldn't push her into saying anything she didn't want to. At least not until her burns were checked out first._

And after the most dreadful walk in Callie's life, they finally reached the small sized bathroom that always felt cramped. The downstairs bathroom appeared even smaller to Callie now that two people were in it. And with that, and the sudden pressure she was receiving from Stef to show her where she burned herself, she felt as if she was suddenly becoming claustrophobic and the walls were closing in on her.

Her breathing slowed and she was forced to watch as Stef flicked on the light and leaned down beside the sink to pull out the first aid kit. With the corner of her eye, the blonde kept her gaze on Callie the entire time which didn't help ease the teen at all. And although Callie was bothered by the sudden lack of trust, she couldn't help but think it was very much needed. Mainly because she did feel the urge to turn back around and try her luck with running.

But instead she took a deep breath, while she watched Stef stand back up with the small white box, placing it on the sink counter and immediately after walking back over toward her. Gently, she maneuvered the girl toward the top of the toilet seat so that she could sit but hadn't expected the sudden movement to cause Callie to flinch again and ball her fists. "Honey, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't…I didn't mean—"

"No," Callie interrupted, "It's not your fault."

_Then whose fault was it?_ Stef thought to herself as she kneeled in front of her and noticed Callie staring off at the blue towels that were on the rack. Stef realized that Callie was trying so hard to hide from all of this by averting her gaze at all costs. But Stef also knew that by following her into the bathroom and admitting to the self-harm, she was willing to receive help from her, despite the fact that it wasn't as strong as the fear she still had that was evident by the way she still had her arms placed over her body.

Stef thought that she would take this slowly for Callie. And she promised herself that no matter how she felt, she wouldn't emotionally react towards the sight of the wounds… _at least not in front of her_. And she couldn't help but feel relief that it was her doing the aftercare than Lena, though she didn't know how she would explain all of this to her wife in general. But she felt grateful enough that she was experienced in hiding her emotions. As a cop, she had to do just that so often when being called to heartless crime scenes that involved complete strangers. But this was Callie. _How did it seem both right and wrong to hide her emotions when it was obvious her daughter was hurting?_ she wondered.

Rather than quickly reaching for the teen's arms again like she had in the living room, the woman gradually took her time opening her glasses case and putting them on. The entire time she was doing this, she was avoiding making eye contact. She kept this slow pace as she stood up to wash her hands and then opened the white box to remove the sterile gauze bandages. She grabbed two, not even sure exactly how many she needed, before putting her hand back into the box and grabbing the other four that were left as well as the gauze tape and the Neosporin.

Stef knew that taking her time and avoiding eye contact would help he daughter feel more relaxed, but they couldn't prevent the inevitable. She knelt down again and felt Callie's eyes on her now, and she had to force herself not to look back up or make any hint of emotion as she reached for the girl's arms one by one.

She felt the teen still wanting to refuse the help by the heaviness of her arm as she pushed them away and the way her body was slightly trembling, while she watched Stef threatening to invade her privacy.

* * *

Callie wanted to stop the woman. She wanted to push her away, but knew that she couldn't keep up with the arguing for the rest of the day and she wasn't up for it. Had she gotten some sleep the night before, she might've tried but she was drained of all the fight she had in her. Allowing Stef to pull up her shirt up to her bra and reveal the 11 regular-sized bandages she had to use, she felt a flush of guilt rush over her. _Stef shouldn't have to be doing this. She had tried to take care of it herself. Why did the woman have to get involved?_ She cursed herself for not locking both doors again. And before she even realized it, she opened her mouth after Stef lifted off the first bandaid. "It was a mistake," she said in a barely audible voice.

Had Stef not been so close to her, she wouldn't have heard the comment. At Callie's sudden attempt to communicate, the blonde raised her gaze to meet her daughter's, trying so hard not to reveal her confusion on her face. "What was a mistake?" she asked calmly as she glanced back down to remove another two bandages so that Callie could feel free to answer.

"The burns," she mumbled and then took a deep breath as she tried to take up a normal tone again, "I hadn't meant for it to get this bad. I didn't expect them to… They've never been like this."

"You've done this before?" Stef tried to ask casually but the thought of Callie burning herself ever since she got to her home was starting to really get to the woman. _How many signs did she miss? How many times did she walk pass the bathroom, while her child was in there hurting, and didn't bother to check?_

"No…not really. Not with the curling iron," Callie clenched her eyelids tightly revealing the embarrassment all over her face. Again, she wished she never lost the lighter. She would've been perfectly fine if she didn't dropped that one thing in the first place.

An immediate realization dawned on Stef. "…With the lighter?" she asked as she tried to keep her voice free of any emotion but she regrettably raised her eyes to meet the teen again.

Callie instantly opened hers as she gazed back at Stef. _Why was she telling her all of this?_ she wondered. _This wasn't what she wanted. Did Stef think she was doing this all for attention? That was the last reason why, but why was it that Stef was right in front of her, giving her just that? And why was it that she was letting herself receive this much it, from a woman she barely even knows? She obviously had better things to do, being at work for starters was one of them. _

Callie felt the need to explain, the need to tell her exactly why she did what she did. She didn't want this much from her and Stef needed to know that. The girl nodded her head to Stef's question and found herself impulsively spilling her thoughts again, "I didn't do this for attention—"

"I didn't think you did," Stef interrupted as she completely forgot about tending to the wounds for a while.

"I didn't even mean to make any marks at all. It was really an accident. I was just… feeling so out of control and upset that I needed to forget about it. I needed to think about something else, do something else, feel anything else…" Callie paused as she felt her tears welling up again. She quickly reached over to grab some tissue so that she could stop them before they had the chance to fall, but Stef grabbed hold of her hand instead and cupped it in her own, bringing it right back to her lap.

"Hey, listen," she tried to coo, "You're allowed to cry."

Callie shook her head, "No, I'm not. I just told you that I'm not doing this for attention and I go ahead and…" She shook her head again not wanting to make things worse. _Why had she ever come back in the first place? Why didn't fight to stay at Helen's?_

"Because you're upset," Stef tried to reason in a comforting tone. "It's perfectly natural to cry when you need to. I cry sometimes too. Does that mean I'm doing it for attention?" Stef asked hypothetically.

Callie stared at Stef for a long time, as if she didn't really believe she ever shed a tear in her life, and the dreadful silence worried the woman.

"Do you think I'm doing it for attention?" she asked in an shocked yet accusing tone, but making sure to smile right afterwards. "What about your mama? She cries even more than everyone in the house combined. Does that mean she's doing it for attention?"

Callie couldn't help but chuckle a little at the comment, "I'm telling her you said that."

"Oh, you better not," Stef threatened playfully as she wiped a tear from Callie's cheek and took a deep breath. "…The point is, you shouldn't have to hide your feelings from anyone else. Bottling everything up is not going to help you. And this isn't good, Callie," Stef finished as she pointed to her burns.

"That's not why I did it," the girl answered abruptly. "…At least, not the main reason… I was doing fine when I had the lighter," she tried to convince the older woman, but she could tell that Stef was not buying it by the sudden change in her posture. Her eyes were no longer on Callie's, instead they were focused on the removing the rest of the bandages. "…The lighter was helping me. I know you don't believe me, but I felt so much better after using it. It helped me forget and it barely left any marks. I never had to use so much as a bandaid when I used it, Stef. Look," she said, as she raised her arm up and pulled up the sleeve to reveal the tiny and barely visible marks on her skin.

They were the same marks that Stef's eyes had completely over-looked when she had checked for cuts on her wrists. She felt herself wanting to cry at the sight of her daughter's arm even more so now, than the giant burns on her stomach. And the fact that Callie was justifying one method over another was just making her want to fly off the handle…


	12. Chapter 12

Stef eyed the small marks on Callie's forearm with both sadness and anger. Sadness for Callie because of what she was doing to herself. And anger with herself because the signs were right in front of her the entire time and she completely ignored them.

She let herself think that she was projecting her own feelings onto Callie because she felt guilty about everything that happened in the past week. But the anger she was feeling toward herself now, ended up really being displaced on the girl this time as she raised her voice and snatched the girl's arm, "Callie, hurting yourself is _never_ the answer. You _can never_ do this again," she continued as she kept her eyes fixed on Callie's.

She didn't intend to hurt her and she wasn't entirely sure if she had or hadn't. All she wanted was to get her daughter to snap out of that way of thinking. Justifying one method of self-harm over another was ludicrous to her.

But she hadn't realized that she took it too far, until she saw Callie's taken aback expression. "But it didn't even—" the teen tried to defend before her mother cut her off to finish her sentence.

"Leave serious marks. I know. But this _wasn't_ a mistake, Callie. _It was not_," she tried to convince her. "…You have _three_ burns here. You can't have _three_ accidents—"

"I didn't expect them to get this bad," Callie practically shouted as she pulled her arm out of Stef's grasp.

_Why wasn't she getting it? she wondered._

"That's the thing about burns. You can't control how they turn out—"

"Yes, I can!" Callie tried to reason. "I won't use the curling iron anymore! It was a stupid thing that I only did because you took away my lighter! We wouldn't even be going through all of this if I still had it."

"So this is my fault?" Stef nodded as looked downwards and took a deep breath before looking back at Callie again, "What about when one of your burns become infected? Then what? Huh? I'm sure you're going to really love those visits to the hospital. I'm telling you," she said sarcastically.

"It's just a lighter, a lighter that doesn't even do anything, Stef! Look!" she said again as she pointed to the small circles, which just appeared as faded bruises now.

Stef didn't bother to glance down at her arm again, because she knew it would just make her angrier. "No? …If it doesn't do anything why do you use it? It's not just a lighter. It's you intentionally pressing fire up against your skin, because you don't know any better and you think that's the only way you can feel something."

* * *

Stef turned her attention away from Callie, stood up, and walked over toward to open the sink cabinet. She grabbed the mild soap and handed it over to the teen, not wanting to discuss this any further until she felt calm enough to do so, "You have to wash them. Get in the shower," she said in such a way that left no room for discussion. She leaned her body against the door frame as she dropped the soap into Callie's hand.

"I did wash them," Callie mumbled childish-like and attempted to hand it back over to her.

"Not with this soap, you didn't."

"So?"

"So, you need to use mild soap for burns and not one with harsh chemicals. They irritate the skin. And you need to wash off the alcohol you put on them. It destroys the tissue."

Callie looked at the blonde angrily and hated that she knew so much. She wanted to keep fighting her now, but it seemed almost pointless when she knew she was wrong. She watched as Stef turned her attention away from her and walked over toward the shower, twisting the shower handle on and adjusting the temperature.

When Stef stood up straight, she saw that Callie had stood up, which she thought was a good sign at least. The blonde walked around the teen before sitting down on the toilet seat cover, "Go ahead. Get in," she instructed as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Her daughter gave her a baffled expression, "Can you at least get out? I can't take a shower with you in here."

Stef sighed and tried to hide her sarcastic smirk, "We're not done talking and I need to make sure you leave the temperature as is. You need to use cold water so that it won't irritate the skin and I need to be in here to make sure you don't turn the knob… I promise not to look," she said as she covered her eyes and looked away.

Callie glared at the woman angrily but knew that it would be no use since Stef was no longer looking. She got into the shower without even taking off her clothes first until she was behind the shower curtain. But when her bare feet felt the cold water she suddenly regretted getting in and regretted even more so taking off her clothes and throwing them over the curtain.

"It's too cold!" she complained and moved the shower curtain so she could stare at Stef for emphasis. But instead she saw the woman picking up her clothes and throwing them outside of the bathroom, making sure to grab the towels so that she could sit down with them all on her lap.

"The faster you wash, the faster you can get out," Stef yelled over the running water.

"This is an illegal form of punishment," Callie informed her.

"I doubt that, and I know a thing or two about the law," Stef said as she offered Callie a smile which enraged the girl enough to pull the shower curtain back. "…You know I'm not doing this to torture you, yes?" Stef had to ask which caused Callie to roll her eyes.

"No? I'm sure you always force Brandon, Mariana, and Jesus, to take freezing cold showers and throw away their clothes so they can't get out," Callie shouted sarcastically. "It's a loving gesture!"

"The water is not that cold, Callie," Stef defended. "I checked it."

The teen pressed her lips together, knowing that whatever she said would go ignored so why bother. Instead, she began to reach for the handle to adjust the temperature herself but was startled by Stef's voice.

"And I can see what you're trying to do, so don't even think about it," Stef yelled as she kept her eyes focused on Callie's hand. She purposely left the shower handle in clear view so that she could keep her eyes on it and smiled when she saw just how fast Callie withdrew her hand. She always found it funny when one of her children thought they could pull one over on her and got caught.

"It's too—"

"Cold. I know. But I also know that it could've been over already."

Callie pressed down on the soap pump and dispensed it onto her hands before throwing it onto the floor immediately afterwards just to show that she was angry. Stef sighed when she heard the noise but expected just as much.

"My love, if it makes you feel any better, I will take a cold shower next, and you can watch that I don't turn the knob either," Stef offered, expecting Calling to say nothing in return and realize how irrational she was being.

But instead she said, "I'm looking forward to it," which caused for Stef to raise her eyebrows in surprise.

"Great. It's settled then," the blonde asserted in a confident voice, even though part of her was now regretting making the offer in the first place.

Callie couldn't help but smirk before she rubbed the soap gently on her burns and sucked in a breath through her teeth from the pain. But instead of focusing on what she was doing, her mind immediately darted to the thought that Stef might've overheard which made her feel even worse.

Stef winced at the sound and thought about standing up to check on her, but refrained from doing so, "Callie? Are—"

"I'm fine," Callie replied before the blonde could finish her sentence. She quickly leaned her stomach toward the water expecting to hate the contact of it, but was relieved when it felt almost comforting to her. She had taken a shower earlier with semi-cold water, but now she was finding this temperature more calming than she had expected on the burns that still felt warm to the touch.

* * *

Stef thought about keeping her mouth shut for the duration of the shower, but then remembered how easy it was for Callie to talk when she wasn't actually looking at her. And although she hesitated because of how upset Callie was now, she worried that the girl would completely close up if she had the time to think too much about it.

_Callie was still talking._

_Yelling, granted, but talking_.

"Callie?"

"What?" Callie snapped, even though she wasn't even sure what she had been angry about anymore. The cold water felt better on her skin but she needed to feel that anger for reasons she couldn't even explain.

"When did all of this start?" Stef asked with as little hesitation as possible.

"When did what start?" Callie questioned hoping to prolong this conversation for as long as possible.

"You know what I'm talking about," Stef maintained, "The burning… When did it start?"

"When I found the lighter," Callie answered in a lower voice.

"Okay…" Stef began in confusion. "And when did you find the lighter?"

"I already told you," Callie continued as she went as far as putting her head under the water. "…While I was locked in the room at Helen's," she mumbled, with the hope that the running water was loud enough to drown out her last sentence.

To be continued…


	13. Chapter 13

_Previous Chapter: "I already told you," Callie continued as she went as far as putting her head under the stream. "…While I was locked in the room at Helen's," she mumbled with the hopes that the running water was loud enough to drown out her last sentence._

Stef's eyes widened as she sat up straight from her layback position on the toilet seat cover, hoping that she had misheard the words that just came out of her daughter's mouth. "…Wh—at?" she finally stuttered after a long pause, for the sake of just saying something. _She couldn't have just said what Stef thought she said… _

Callie's lips tightened and she held her breath, once she realized the words that she just let escape her mouth. She hadn't meant to say them, but she was too tired to think before speaking and that left her in a vulnerable position. Anything else she would say afterward would've been dreadful for her to even think about.

Not wanting to continue the conversation even further, she closed her eyes again and imagined she was somewhere else.

_In the room that Helen had locked her in, maybe?_ That would've been a better place than where she was now.

_It wasn't as bad as it seemed, really… She had been through much worse before_.

And to some extent, Callie knew the woman was right to lock her in.

_She was a runaway._

_She shouldn't be trusted._

_It was the emotions she felt inside of the room, which scared her the most._

"Callie?" Stef called after realizing that the teen wasn't going to say anything in response to her one word question.

"Yeah?" Callie answered only because she was afraid Stef would try to pull the curtain back if she didn't say anything at all.

"…What do you mean you were locked in the room?" Stef tried to ask in the calmest voice she could muster, even though by now her fists were clenched tightly as she felt the sudden rage burning inside of her for the woman who was supposed to take care of her daughter.

As for right now, she was glad that the shower curtain was blocking Callie from seeing just how angry the blonde really felt. She wouldn't show Callie this side of her and especially not now, not right after she had just yelled at her. She wouldn't allow the teen to misconstrue her immediate physical reaction and believe that it was aimed toward her.

* * *

Callie lifted moved her head away from under the cold water and slowly pushed the shower handle off, "I'm done. Can you pass me a towel?" Callie asked in a nonchalant voice as she held her hand out from the shower curtain in order to avoid the question.

_Answering it wouldn't have made a difference anyway._

_She wasn't there anymore and she was still burning._

_That couldn't have been the main reason she was doing it._

_She had completely forgotten about Helen when she came back and wasn't reminded of the old woman until Stef decided to block her only way out of her bedroom._

_It wasn't being locked inside of a room she was afraid of and it certainly wasn't Helen._

Stef knew that Callie had answered her question by her silence. It was something that the teen had done before when she was too afraid to admit something. And the silent confirmation didn't help the blonde feel better either, so she understood why Callie would choose not to respond.

The older woman took a deep breath, mostly for herself, before she stood up hesitantly and passed Callie one of the towels she had on her lap. She would force herself to hold off on the rest the questions that were burning in her mind, until she knew exactly what to say and that her daughter felt comfortable enough answering. She realized that standing naked in back of a shower curtain, with someone on the other side, must've not been all that comforting to Callie.

"I'll be right back, sweets. I'm going to get you some clothes, okay?" Stef let her know, as she was forced to use every fiber in her being to not pull the shower curtain back and engulf the girl in her arms from all the sentiments she was feeling at the moment.

_Why hadn't Callie said anything before?_

_Why hadn't she told her the second that she picked her up?_

As much as she wanted to punish this old woman for doing something like that to her daughter, she wanted to punish herself more for allowing it to happen in the first place.

_No wonder she hated me so much_… Stef thought to herself as she made her way out of the room and towards the girls' room. _She had gone through something so traumatizing and it was essentially my fault_.

_If I hadn't let her get taken away by Elaine in the first place, none of this would've ever happened._

* * *

By the time she got back to the bathroom she noticed that Callie hadn't moved a muscle to make her way out of the shower, understandably. She grabbed the sports bra and the underwear she had picked from the pile and handed held it out for Callie to put on first.

The teen hadn't said a word when she took the undergarments from Stef's hands. But the fact that she didn't snatch them from her abruptly was enough to make the blonde feel like Callie was trying. And after a few seconds, Callie's hand reached out of the curtain for the rest of her clothes, but Stef knew this would be the hardest part.

"Come out for a second, love," she tried to say but Callie squinted her eyes in confusion from behind the curtain.

"Can I see you first?" Stef asked and that was when Callie understood just what Stef was trying to do now.

"Why?" she retorted, knowing fully well what the answer to her own question was. _Stef didn't trust her. She didn't trust that Callie didn't have more burns on her body besides the ones that she had seen_. And she wanted Stef to admit exactly why. She wanted the woman to tell her that she didn't trust her, so that Callie would be able to repeat the same thing back. She was just waiting for the older woman to say it first.

"Because…" Stef hesitated but knew that she should be honest more than anything right now, "Because I want to make sure that you don't have any more burns."

"I don't," Callie snapped. "Don't you trust me?" Callie asked sarcastically.

"Of course I trust you, baby. This is not about not trusting you… This is about not trusting myself. I just need to see for myself that you're okay and not just hope that you are. Callie… this isn't easy for me either," Stef admitted. "…The entire time I knew something was going on with you and I let myself think that I was making a making it all up, that you weren't really acting any different because that was easier for me. I looked at your wrist when I was checking for cuts and I glanced right over your burns. I just… I need to really see that you don't have any more, and not just hear you tell me."

By the end of Stef's explanation, her voice was beginning to crack and Callie couldn't help but feel bad after wanting to find a reason to start another fight. She slowly pulled away the curtain, even though she knew it would make her feel uncomfortable and she didn't understand why she was giving the woman permission to examine her body.

"Thank you," Stef stated as she stared directly at Callie's face before moving onto her arms and downwards.

_Was she beginning to trust her too?_ Callie thought to herself. _And should she be?_ _After all that happened and after convincing herself that Stef was untrustworthy, she couldn't understand why she was trusting her now._

Stef tried to look over the girl as quickly as possible, not wanting to embarrass her even more than she already had but not wanting to miss the slightest discolored circle on her skin either. And immediately afterwards the blonde felt much better, knowing that there were no other burns than the ones that she had seen previously. She glanced away from Callie as she handed her some pajama pants so that she could put them on.

But the immediate reach for her clothes was unexpected by older woman. And it was more proof to her that Callie didn't trust her. It was as if every time Stef thought she was finally getting through to the teen, she was taking five steps backwards to where she started…

* * *

**A/N: 2 more chapters left! The next one will probably be super-long so I don't end at a weird numbered chapter :/**

**Thank you all for reading and your reviews. Makes my day, seriously :)**


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: This chapter is way longer than my other chapters because I needed to go over a lot without jumbling it into a short chapter. Most of my chapters are around a thousand words but this one is closer to four and that's A LOT to me.**

* * *

Stef tried not to dwell on Callie's sudden setback for too long. Instead, she reached for the Neosporin and waited for the teen to put on her pants while she kept herself busy, opening the tube. The second she was about to place a little bit on her finger, Callie reached for it and Stef released the tube into her hands with complete understanding

"I can do it," Callie answered calmly but with a hint of anger that didn't go unnoticed by the blonde. But Stef said that she trusted Callie so she had to act like it. And the answer to whether Callie trusted Stef was evident by those four words that just came out of her mouth.

It's not that the girl wasn't trying to trust Stef, because she wanted more than anything to do just that. However, something in the back of her mind kept telling her not to.

Who could she really trust anymore anyway, especially if everyone she thought she could ever count on ended up betraying her, Stef included.

The woman opened each of the sterile gauze bandages and watched as her daughter grabbed every single one from her hand before she could even try to place them onto her burns herself. Even though the gesture hurt her, she stopped trying to put them on and would hand them over to Callie instead. And when she was done covering them up, Stef ripped the gauze tape and just handed over the small pieces so that the teen could keep the bandages in place. She handed the girl her t-shirt as a peace offering but before letting her put it on she immediately grabbed Callie's forearm and opened the Neosporin tube again.

_I don't need it there_, Callie wanted to say but Stef was already rubbing the ointment on her.

"We can't risk these getting infected either. Can we?" the blonde starts as she eyes Callie sternly, as if she could already tell what the teen was thinking. "Just because you can barely see them doesn't mean they aren't there," she adds as she quickly placed her attention back to her arm and placed the gauze bandage over them and afterwards, immediately applied the tape before handing Callie her robe.

_She shouldn't have done that. It wasn't her job to do that_, Callie wanted to yell at her.

But instead, she found herself in complete silence and allowed Stef to lead her all the way upstairs. And the second Callie realized they stopped in front of Stef and Lena's bedroom instead of her own she came to a halt just outside the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest in her typical defense mode. And although she tried to remain still, she still found herself being pushed further in by the older woman, who was still holding a towel in her hand for some odd reason Callie couldn't point out.

Stef gently pushed her daughter onto the edge of the bed and it wasn't until Stef sat beside her and twisted her body away that Callie realized why the woman brought the towel in the first place.

"Turn around, sweets," Stef ordered but it came off as more of a question with her tone of voice.

That was something that Callie liked; she liked having the option to say no, but before she could, she was doing just as Stef had asked and turned around. She remained the entire time even when she felt the towel, along with Stef's hands reach for her hair. And she couldn't understand why she was allowing the woman to dry it.

And even though Callie didn't say a word as she felt the towel ruffling through her strands of hair, she felt guilty for allowing herself to feel this way. She let the gentleness of the movements on her scalp put her and ease, but still she wasn't entirely sure if she confused the sensation for love.

One part of her, longed for the comforting feeling that it brought to her, while the other part despised it and wanted nothing more than for it to stop.

_She was doing it again._

_She was letting Stef win by allowing her to get this close to her._

_Hadn't she realized that this was the problem before?_

_This time tomorrow, she wouldn't know if she'd be gone again so why was she being so stupid?_

And it was the second feeling that caused her to pull herself away from Stef and keep herself together or so she thought. She couldn't make the same mistake twice.

When Stef realized exactly what Callie was doing, she could tell that his conversation was going to have to happen sooner or later so she decided to be the first to open her mouth, "…Okay, Callie. I know you're mad at me—" Stef paused when she heard the teen scoff under breath at the understatement. "Now, that's not very helpful," she continued as she adjusted her position on the bed so that she could read Callie's body language better. She didn't want to risk missing anything this time. Stef already felt like she failed her daughter in more ways than one, so she wouldn't allow for herself to do it again. She attempted to change the subject to what was really bothering her the most, "You said that Helen locked you in a room? …" She came to a pause so that she could listen to what the teen had to say but didn't hear a response, "Callie, please talk to me…" she begged.

_What Stef didn't know was that the girl wanted to talk to her. She wanted to tell her exactly how she felt that day when Elaine came to pick her up._

_How she felt during the entire forty-minute drive in the car with the complete stranger…_

_How she felt when she stepped foot in another house with a new strange woman and having that woman lock her away so that she couldn't get out._

_She wanted to tell Stef how she convinced herself so much that no one would ever come back for her, that when she finally did she had never been able to snap out of it._

But silence was always a better option for everyone involved so she tried her best to contain her thoughts. And still, the heaviness of her eyelids were becoming unbearable now, and all she wanted was to get the older woman to stop talking, "Why do you even care?" she asked her foster-mother in a harsh tone, with the hopes that she wouldn't respond back. It was a hypothetical question to Callie. It was supposed to get Stef to feel like the conversation was over and to get the older woman to give up. But all it did was prove that she didn't know Stef as well as she thought.

Stef's eyes began to glisten as she tried hard to take in a deep breath through her nose. She didn't want to cry in front of the teen, even after she had just given her a lecture about how crying was allowed in this house. She was the mother and she was supposed to show strength. "Honey…I do care. The thought of that old woman locking you in a room just…" Stef paused when she felt her anger revealing itself in her tone of voice toward Callie and that was the last thing that she wanted.

"Do you think I really care about that?" Callie retorted. "Part of me was glad she did it."

The blonde looked at Callie with a baffled expression because she was unable to wrap her mind around how anybody would be happy about that. "Baby, I don't—"

* * *

"Of course you don't understand," Callie snapped as she stood up to walk back to her room and tried storming off, "This entire time, you haven't even been trying t—"

Stef followed right behind the teen as she walked out, and Callie thought Stef would never stop following her. "Callie, you cannot honestly tell me that I'm not trying right now because that's all I've been doing since the second I woke up this morning. Since the second I picked you up from Helen's, I've been trying to get you to talk to me. And every time I try, you just keep walking away from me like I'm not even here!"

Callie whipped her body around, as she was just a few steps away from her room, "I'm not talking about now, Stef. I'm talking about before all of this! Before I was locked in that room! Before I was taken away from your house! You let it happen…"

"Sweetheart, I couldn't do anything," Stef pleaded.

"No… I trusted that you wanted me here. I trusted that was the reason that you ever came back to see me at Girls United…" Callie shook her head slightly as Stef tried to reach for the teen but she backed her body away again, not willing to allow her touch to comfort her. "Why did you bring me back? From Girls United…From Helen's? What was the point?"

Stef felt as is she had just been stabbed by the teen with every question she was being asked. She stood frozen as she tried to take in all that Callie was saying. But Callie took Stef's moment of stunned silence to her advantage as she turned around and took a few more steps, making sure to close her bedroom door behind her. She pressed her entire weight on the door in order to keep it shut, but all it was doing was making her burns hurt even more from the impact the wood made against her back.

The older woman finally let the tears, that she was so badly holding in, trickle down her face as she walked over to the door. She didn't immediately try to open it, because she could tell that Callie was on the other side pressing her body against it. The last thing she wanted to do was cause her any more pain, "Callie…baby… Lena and I do want you here, more than anything—"

"Then why did you just let me get taken away? Why did you just forget about renewing your fostering license? Why did you just decide you wanted another baby?" Callie listed off the questions as if every single one of them were just proof that they didn't care. Even if it were just subconsciously true, they wouldn't have forgotten all of these things if they really wanted her.

Stef took a few steps backward and tried her best to keep herself together, but she had never considered the baby as an issue for Callie. She knew that she was to blame for Callie getting taken away, she should've renewed her fostering license and prepared for the worst. She should've prepared for every possible scenario before cps ever got a chance to come and get take her away from them. But she wasn't prepared for the baby news to add to Callie's stress. And the long silence that took place directly afterwards just added to Stef's guilt. She didn't even know what else to say that she didn't already, to make the situation better. "Oh my god," she mumbled to herself as she covered her mouth, hoping that her daughter didn't hear.

But she knew she had to say something to her. She couldn't allow the teen to keep thinking that they didn't care. "Callie," she started as she took a deep breath and walked back over toward the door, contemplating one last time whether or not to turn the knob, but instead she let herself sink down onto the floor, so that she could be as low as she felt at that very moment, "…I'm sorry…I'm sorry we didn't renew our fostering license but it was only because we thought you'd already be our kid before then. We…we had no idea that they were going to deny your adoption because we didn't want to think that way. And that night, when you were taken out of our house, was one of the hardest we had to go through in a…very long time," Stef closed her eyes as she recounted the memory in her head of having to watch Callie walk back outside of the house with the same bag that she came in with, months ago. She hated seeing that blue duffle bag but remembered being thankful that night that she never threw it out. "…And I know that it was my fault. I know that. All I had to do was get that stupid paper renewed and you would've never had to go through any of it. None of us would have. But I honestly forgot because I didn't think you'd ever get taken away. You are our kid Callie, and this new baby would never change the love that Lena and I have for any of you…"

"You don't know that," Callie said from behind the door as she moved herself off it and walked over toward her own bed.

* * *

Stef waited until she heard the springs on Callie's mattress lower before she slowly opened the door to let herself in.

"Of course I know that. Why would you even think—"

"Because it's what always happens," Callie answered as she wiped a tear from her face. "When the last family, Jude and I were in, promised to adopt us both, we believed them…But then they had a kid of their own and—"

"They changed their minds?" Stef asked as she sat on the bed beside the teen.

"No… not at first. They still liked having us around. I would watch the baby for them and then Jude would play with her… until they didn't want us around anymore… Not until the father dropped us off to our social worker one day and that's the last we heard from them… So you see, this is what happens. You and Lena will realize that you have too many kids already and you'll let them take me away, if you don't end up dropping me off…"

"That's not true," Stef replied in a stern voice as she stared at Callie intently. "That would never happen."

"No. It would... But you've adopted Jude now, so he won't blame me this time. This time is better," Callie mumbled as she tried to assure herself everything would be all right. "You don't know what that means to me," Callie tried to smile even though it was barely noticeable. She remembered telling Jude that it was her fault that their foster-father dropped them off and forgot about them. She told him that she had complained too much and never stopped crying, because she didn't want her brother to blame himself or think that he was the problem. And in doing that, she convinced herself that she was.

And everything that ever happened afterwards just proved it.

But she hadn't expected Stef to react in such a way as to grab her chin in her hands and force her to look in her direction, "Callie, you have to stop that. We didn't drop you off anywhere and we wouldn't forget about you in a million years... Now I'm sorry that I didn't stop that woman from taking you and I promise not to ever let that happen again, okay?"

Callie stared at the woman in front of her and saw both anger and hurt in her eyes. And she became confused as to why she felt bad for making her upset, when that had been exactly what she wanted to do, ever since she got back. She wanted Stef to feel that same hurt that she had felt when she walked out of the house. She wanted someone else to go through exactly what she had been going through in the past few days.

_So why was she regretting yelling at her now?_

_Why was she angrier with herself for making the woman feel this way?_

"I thought that y…" Callie froze as she tried to get her last words out. She wanted so badly to say them but a little voice in her mind was begging her to shut up.

"You thought what?" Stef asked as she tried to urge the teen to say what she needed to. They didn't have any more time to shut themselves off. They needed to keep their thoughts from being bottled up again. "Callie, you thought what?" she repeated, in hopes that the repetition in her voice would force the girl to open up to her.

"I thought you weren't coming back," she both yelled and cried as she attempted to cover her face but Stef moved her hands away and quickly wrapped her arms around her Callie, making sure to hold on to her tightly. And for a second they both forgot about the burn-marks that were causing Callie even more pain now that they were having pressure put against them.

But even still, Callie wrapped her arms around the woman she already saw as her mother and refused to let her go until she was sure she wouldn't lose her again. Yes, it put more pain on her body but that pain was nothing compared to the hurt she felt when she felt when she didn't have anyone with her in that room.

Stef finally felt Callie flinching away from the contact and backed up, only slightly, when she was reminded of the burns. "I'm sorry," she added as she stared at Callie's shirt and it was like she could see right through it. She wondered if the image would ever go away. "I promise you that no matter what happens, we will always come back for you. But I can't promise that we won't let you down like this again, because I don't know what's in store for us, kid… We might hit a few more bumps and you have to know that we'll always be here. No matter what… But you have to promise me something too…"

* * *

Callie glanced away from the woman because she knew exactly what she was going to say. But she didn't want to hear it. She leaned farther back so that she had her back pressed against the pillow and wall by her bed and she tried so hard not to stare back at Stef.

Stef understood what the teen was attempting to do, but that wouldn't stop her from saying what needed to be said. She put her own body in the same position as Callie's and lifted the teen a bit so that she could hold her when she spoke. She needed the girl to feel like she was loved, like she was better than what she was doing to herself, "I need you to promise me that you won't do this again."

"Stef," Callie started to defend.

"No, Callie. It's scary… It's scary that my daughter would rather choose to press fire up against her bare skin, rather than talk to me about what's going on. That's not okay, sweets. You can really hurt yourself. And if you think you need more therapy than maybe—"

"That's not what I want," Callie quickly interrupted at the thought of having to tell someone else about this. She didn't want them to think she was crazy. She didn't feel that way. "This isn't something I planned. I didn't want to find that lighter in that room. I didn't want to even use it, but it felt good to feel pain again. To be reminded that I was still here… Or maybe it felt bad. But even if it did, taking my mind off of everything except the pain felt good. It helped me forget all that was going on, even if it was just for a little while."

"So you can't try and find something else to take your mind of things? I would prefer for you to talk to me… or even Lena. But if you can't, can you try to find something else to help you? Something that doesn't involve inflicting pain on yourself? Maybe running or a new hobby? B plays basketball when he gets upset. You know, maybe you can try that. You don't have to be any good, everyone in this house knows that he isn't…"

Callie chuckled at Stef's last comment, "That's not nice," she added causing Stef to reciprocate in the laughter.

"Maybe not, but as long as it helps him, I don't mind at all. He can miss every single basket for all I care…" Callie laughed again and Stef admired that even after the heaviness of the conversation, the teen could still find the heart to laugh. "Sweets, I just want you to find another out, another method of escape that doesn't scare the crap out of me," she said seriously and Callie found herself realizing that she wasn't only hurting herself. She was hurting Stef too.

"I'm sorry," Callie mumbled.

"Don't be sorry. It's easy to say that you're sorry. It's more of an accomplishment when you show it… And if you need me to go running with you or whatever, you know _I will_..." she added seriously. "But I need you to promise that you won't touch another lighter or do something like that ever again, no matter how good it makes you feel at the time and no matter how much you're able to forget. No more of this," Stef said as she pointed to Callie's arm that was conveniently lying on top of her abdomen. "Promise?"

Callie lifted her head a little to stare up at her mother and she could see the sincerity in her eyes. "Okay," she answered clearly. "I promise." Callie concluded as she quickly glanced at the clock on her nightstand and asked the question that was burning in her mind since she woke up, "So…Does this mean I have to go to school?"

Stef laughed out loud and glanced over at the digital clock, and realized it was only 9:15am. _It was clearly enough time to get back to work and take Callie to school. _She squinted her eyes as she tried to pretend as if she were really considering it, "Let's just pretend that we didn't resolve this until after noon, if mama asks," she said as she turned the clock around as if she had never seen the time. "We're both allowed to play hooky at least one day of the year," she smiled as Stef tried to reach for the covers but noticed that Callie was already pulling them over her, "Oh, really?" she asked once she realized that the teen already knew that Stef was going to give in.

Callie nodded as she tried to hide the smile. "It was either that or you were going to have to take the cold shower you promised you'd take."

"Point taken," Stef smiled as she fluffed up the pillows so that they could sleep comfortably. "I'll take hooky over that any day..."


	15. Chapter 15

Lena couldn't help but worry about leaving Stef alone with Callie to deal with. Had she not been responsible for getting all of her other children out of the house, she knew she would have refused. Callie was her daughter too, and she didn't like that she was being treated as an invalid simply because she was pregnant, especially when she knew that Callie would never hurt her. And she made a promise to herself that she'd pass by the second the bell rang for lunch time, despite her wife's protest that she stay in school.

When she opened the front door of the house, she couldn't help but worry when she heard complete silence. It seemed almost too quiet, as if something had gone wrong and neither her wife nor her daughter were here at all. She quickly took off her jacket and threw her keys and purse onto the chair beside the door, before she practically jogged up the stairs, wanting to check the place where she last left them.

She grew anxious when she walked passed her own room and noticed no sign of Stef, which caused her to loudly and awkwardly enter the girls' bedroom next. And at the loud sound of the creaking of the door, Stef's eyes immediately flew open and she stared at her wife in confusion through squinted eyes before she glanced down at Callie who still seemed sound asleep with her head placed on Stef's upper chest.

Lena appeared even more confused at the calm sight she was now seeing, after she half-expected to hear Stef's voice from down the street. And now she couldn't understand why she had driven so fast to get there.

Stef lifted her index finger so that she could quietly tell Lena to hold on, while she gently maneuvered Callie's head and arm off of her and onto the pillow. And as sweet as the moment looked to Lena when she first saw it, she immediately noticed the gauze pad taped to Callie's forearm, and that feeling of tranquility quickly dissipated

Although Callie had woken up at the exact same time as the blonde, she allowed for her to think that she was still asleep, even though she wasn't entirely sure how much her plan was actually working. She wasn't ready to tell Lena about everything that she had been doing, and she knew it was selfish to let the woman that had been trying to help her all day, do it for her. But the quick kiss that she felt on her forehead, the second Stef plopped her head onto the pillow, was all the reassurance she needed to remind her that Stef didn't mind.

* * *

And when Stef closed the door to the bedroom, she immediately pulled Lena away from it so that she wouldn't keep her wife in suspense any longer, "Honey, I'm sorry that I didn't call."

"No, it's okay," Lena replied as if that was the last thing on her mind. "I'm just glad that I found you both here and doing alright—" Lena paused when she realized that this conversation was dragging on more than she wanted it to, "So did you find out what happened? Why she was…"

"Yes, I did," Stef informed her as she began walking down the stairs so that her wife could follow.

"And was it? …"

The blonde stared at her wife as she struggled to come up with the right response. She wanted to explain this to her, without Lena feeling like she was at fault. She contemplated on telling her that the baby was another reason why Callie had been doing what she did, but she knew that she deserved to know.

"It wasn't cutting, no," Stef remarked but quickly regretted it when she felt Lena's sigh of relief.

"Oh thank God," she mumbled as she looked at Stef's serious face and couldn't understand why her wife wasn't all too happy about it. "This is good news, right?"

"Callie… has been hurting herself another way…. Burning," she answered awkwardly as she pulled Lena's hand so that she'd sit beside her on the couch. "That's why she had the lighter. She was burning herself and last night it got a little out of hand."

"What do you mean… she has been burning herself?"

"It's another version of self-harm, Lena."

"I know that it is, Stef. But… Why? How?" Lena stuttered as she tried to wrap her mind around how she must've missed this. _She was the one in the family that would instantly pick up on these things. She was the one that studied nonverbal communication and child psychology in college. How could she have not seen that this was happening in front of her face?_

"She said it helped her deal with certain feelings. You know how she would always make bad decisions went she felt scared or confused…"

"I thought Girls United helped her with that?"

"So did I," Stef said informatively. "But this didn't start happening until after Girls United," the blonde eyed her counterpart sternly, to let her know that she also felt to blame for most of it.

"She started this when she came back?" Lena asked in complete disorientation.

"No," Stef's voice became angrier and full of accusation, "She started when she went to Helen's. She found the lighter when that old bitch thought it was a good idea to lock another person's kid inside of a bedroom."

And before Lena could wrap her mind around everything that her wife was explaining to her, Stef was already going through Lena's purse in search for her cellphone.

Lena knew exactly what she was doing but wanted answers more than she wanted to call cps and tell them off. "Stef, don't do this. Not now," she said as she grabbed her purse from her wife's lap. "You asked me to leave and I did. She's my child too. And the least you can do, is give me some explanations before you start going off the handle to every cps worker because you feel guilty."

"Well, I should feel guilty," the blonde said hastily.

"You didn't lock her in that room, Stef."

"No, but she started while she was over there and she didn't stop the second she got back," Stef practically yelled. "I knew that she was upset and I did nothing."

"You apologized. We both apologized."

"Do you not understand what happened when she left, Lena? She thought we were going to leave her there! That we weren't coming back for her!"

"Why would she think that?"

"Because it's what she's used to! She's used to disappointment after disappointment… And to make matters worse, we didn't help anything by waving her out the door," Stef's eyes were glaring and her voice got deeper.

"We didn't—" Lena paused and took a deep breath in order to contain her emotions. She knew very well that this wasn't the Stef that she could calm down, so she thought it was better not to. "I'm going to make us some tea. You can call whoever you'd like, just make sure to keep your voice down so that Callie doesn't overhear you."

Stef finally found the phone from Lena's purse and mumbled an, "I'll try," before she watched Lena walk away.

* * *

By the time Callie heard complete silence, she wondered if it was safe to go downstairs. Although she hadn't heard exactly what was said between the two women, she would still hear their voices mumbling downstairs on and off. And she knew that they were talking about her.

And it was the thought of leaving Stef to tell Lena everything, which made the teen lift her feet from the bed and onto the floor. The woman had already been through so much this morning that she didn't want her keep having to deal with this mess, the mess that _she_ made. Callie slowly turned the knob of her bedroom door and quietly made her way to the stairs, where she could still hear Stef's voice but now it was becoming clearer and clearer.

"My daughter wouldn't lie about something like that! You ripped her out of my home and dropped her off there! All because why? You were afraid to lose your job over some piece of paper?"

_Silence._

"It was your responsibility to make sure that my kid was taken care of. I specifically told you to check this woman out before you left her there, and you assured me that it wouldn't be a problem. You assured me that this woman could be trusted."

_Silence._

"No, your _only_ job is to make sure that these kids are safe. If there was a fire and Callie couldn't get out then what? What if there was a gas leak and the house filled with carbon monoxide? The only chance my daughter would've had of escaping would've been the window, but oh wait! There were bars on the windows so never mind that!"

"Stef," Callie said in a low but loud enough voice so that her mother could hear.

"Hey, honey…" the blonde instantly said in a different tone of voice and then moved her mouth over toward the phone receiver again, "I will call you right back." With that, she ended the conversation and tossed the phone over to the couch. "What's u…" she paused when she realized that Callie was still staring at the phone. "How much of that did you hear exactly?"

"I wasn't eavesdropping," Callie immediately blurted out. "Not on purpose anyway."

"If I had a nickel for every time I heard that from one of my kids…" Stef said with a smirk.

"It's not her fault."

"Callie," Stef started but Callie continued.

"Or Helen's. They didn't make me do this."

* * *

And at that exact moment, Lena walked into the living room with two mugs and was surprised when she saw Callie at the bottom of the stairs. "I'm sorry… Um… am I interrupting something? I can go."

Stef turned to Callie, in hopes that she wouldn't exclude Lena from this just as she, herself, had done this morning.

"No, you can stay. I'm guessing you already know anyway," Callie shrugged uncomfortably as she looked at Lena.

The woman handed Stef her mug and took a seat on the couch that she had been sitting in before.

"And I was just telling Stef that it wasn't anyone's fault... Helen, Elaine, or either of you. I was the one that decided to…" the teen paused and she couldn't understand why it was so hard for her to say it. She could do it and feel the relief, but she couldn't even say the words. _How did that make sense?_

"Burn yourself," Lena helped her as she motioned with her hand for Callie to take a seat on the sofa across from her and hoped that Stef would do the same.

Even though Callie wanted that distance between the two women, she knew that they didn't deserve it, so she made those few steps toward the couch and finally sat down. She tried her best not to appear surprised when she felt the weight on the sofa beside her.

"This is so embarrassing. Neither of you were supposed to find out about this," Callie said as she tried to hide the gauze on her arm with her other hand.

"Well, I'm glad we did before things got worse," Lena tried to say as she stared at Callie's arm but Stef closed her eyes, realizing that she forgot to tell Lena everything and wondering if she actually should. It was so common for her to want to keep bad things from her in hopes that she was protecting her, but she knew that her wife didn't always view the secrecy the same way. Lena could read Stef like a book, and she knew that there was more to the burning then just Callie's arm. "Where else?"

"Where else what?" Callie asked in confusion.

"Where else did you burn yourself…besides your arm?"

"Um," Callie started nervously as she stared to Stef and just received a reassuring nod so that she'd continue, "My stomach… I tried to pick a place that you two wouldn't notice. I didn't want you having to deal with this kind of stuff."

Lena took a deep breath and nodded with understanding. She couldn't let the other two think that she would fall apart, like she was the weak one. Even though she wondered if Stef felt as hurt as she did inside but was trying to put on a brave face for Callie, just as she was.

"I took care of all of the burns already," Stef tried to console Lena, knowing that would be the next question on her mind.

"And I promised that I'd stop. It won't happen again," Callie attempted to assure both women. "I realized that it wasn't really helping anything. It was just masking the problems, I guess. Not making them go away."

* * *

"And…this all started when Helen…" Lena stopped herself. Although she didn't want to blame the woman or cps like Stef had, she found herself riling up with anger.

"It wasn't them. Helen actually helped me in a way I guess… I got that feeling again while I was there… I wanted to run…"

"You mean, like run away?" Stef's voice came out calm and collective outside, but inside she was feeling nothing but panic and she assumed her wife was feeling the same.

"But I couldn't," Callie admitted. "Because she locked me in and I couldn't get out… She did help… more than you think. So please don't be mad at her, because I wouldn't even be here if she didn't do what she did."

"I can't _not_ be mad at her," Stef shook her head. "I know that you think she helped you but—"

Lena interrupted, "What Stef is trying to say, is that she had no right to lock you or anyone else up like that. If there was a fire, you could've gotten really hurt."

"I know, but—"

"No buts. We were lucky that you didn't runaway and it helped you, but what about the next girl that might get hurt because of it? …And you can't tell me that you weren't affected by what she did Callie."

"I felt safe there," Callie tried to defend.

"And you didn't feel safe here?" Lena asked with apparent confusion in her voice. "If there was something we did to make you feel unsafe, you need to let us know. We will do whatever we can, but we're not mind-readers."

"That's not it," Callie looked at Lena and then at Stef, "I felt _too safe_ here. I got too comfortable in this house, and look what happened the second I left. I fell apart, completely… That didn't use to happen," the girl informed them.

"And we don't want you to leave again, either," Stef answered as she pushed Callie's hair behind her ear.

Lena budded in, "That's why we got our fostering license renewed. And in doing that, your brave and not so smart momma almost got arrested the day after you left," Lena looked over at Stef, "I'm still not so thrilled about that. Need I remind you?"

"You what?" Callie raised her eyebrows at Stef.

"You're not the only one who was falling apart when you left, my love," Stef said as she kissed Callie on top of her head. "And it doesn't matter what happened or _almost happened_," Stef squinted her eyes at her wife, silently letting her know that she didn't want anyone to hear about that bit on information. "The only thing that matters is that you know we're going to keep fighting for you."

"But you shouldn't have to."

"We're your moms," Lena reminded her. "It's what we're supposed to do."

_I wish that were really true_, Callie wanted to respond but she just nodded her head instead. "Maybe it shouldn't be so hard though..."

"What do you mean?" Lena questioned.

"Maybe we should try to find him…Robert, I mean. To get him to sign the papers? I just…I don't want all of this to happen again. I can't guarantee that I'll go back to Helen's the next time. You know?"

"We know," Stef said. "And as long as you're sure that this is what you really want, then we'll be right behind you."

"Agreed," Lena said as she slapped Callie's lap gently before getting up from the couch. "The last thing any of you kids need is to visit both of your moms in the lock-up."

"I was going to be held in contempt!" Stef yelled at her wife who was already walking into the kitchen. "It's not the same thing!"

"What?" Callie finally smiled at the thought, as Stef grabbed her hand to pull her off of the couch.

"They both mean 'behind bars'!" Lena yelled as she turned around before fully exiting the living room.

"She's right," Callie defended.

"Can we change the topic, please? You know that freezing cold shower sounds enticing right about now…"

"Don't you worry," Callie smiled at the chance to turn the tables on her mother. "I haven't forgotten about that, but this part of the conversation is far from over…"

"Oh, so you're enjoying this are you?" the blonde asked as she tried to eye Callie seriously but the embarrassment was written all over her face.

"Just a little," Callie admitted as she wrapped her arm around Stef's, so that she wouldn't be able to get away. "You know, I'd still come visit you in jail."

"Really?" Stef said in a dumfounded voice. "You'd do that for me?" she asked sarcastically.

Callie let go of the woman's arm and walked ahead purposely. "Well, it's the least I could do if I put you in there… But hey, I hear there's only cold water in the showers," the teen said matter-of-factly as she followed Lena into the kitchen, leaving Stef with a floored expression on her face.

**The End.**

* * *

**I hope that you all enjoyed it. I didn't want to drag it out for too long which is why I made it 15 chapters. I can't read forty something chapters about self-harm in the same story so that's why I made it kinda short? **

**HOWEVER, due to requests there will be a sequel. Kinda a sequel? Maybe it is one? Whatever, it's my version of a sequel. It's basically a whole new story but takes place after this one.**

**It will also be my continuation of the season 2a finale, when Robert decides that he doesn't want to sign the papers.**

**This story, BURNED, focused on Stef and Lena finding out about the burning and thinking that they've dealt with it.**

**The sequel/not really a sequel, BRANDED, will be about Callie reverting back to burning and will be more intense than the first. I want to make sure that it has a fresh new idea, and doesn't get boring with the constant repeating of everything that happened in BURNED. And of course, Callie's dealing with new issues so I want it to be as different as possible, yet contain the same core concept.**

**I won't be referring to it as a sequel, because it is like a brand new story, so if you want to read it, it will be under the title BRANDED. **


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